NBA

NBA Pre-Postseason Player Tiers 2023: Joel Embiid’s next step is playoff success
Seth Partnow
Apr 7, 2023

My guess is two of the players about whom I’m going to get the most pushback in terms of what slot they’re in are Jayson Tatum (Tier 2A, or seventh to ninth top player in the league) and Joel Embiid (1B, fifth or sixth), especially given both having seasons that will place them in the top five, and in Embiid’s case, possibly at the top of the MVP voting.

And I’m here to tell you there is literally (well, almost literally, but nobody is going ’61 Wilt or anything) nothing they could have done this regular season to move any higher. Because the questions they have to answer, and the tests they have to pass, happen in May and June, not January and February.

I’m not even saying either player has shirked or shrunk in playoffs past. But they haven’t quite overcome either.

Somehow, a narrative has developed that last season’s NBA Finals weren’t actually that close, but with a chance to go up 3-1 at home, Boston had a five-point lead with 6:30 left in Game 4. And the Celtics couldn’t close it out and didn’t win another game from there. A big reason was the degree to which the Warriors had seemingly (and finally) figured out Tatum, turning him into much more of an isolation scorer than the playmaking offensive engine who helps the Celtics purr. Over the final two games, he made only 16 of 38 shots, with nine turnovers against only 11 assists.

To put a point on it, the title was there to be won, but Boston’s offense bogged down. With Tatum the primary driver of that offense, he takes a good chunk of the blame. Maybe if the late-game offensive foibles hadn’t plagued the Celtics earlier in the postseason — they made harder work of the series against the Bucks and Heat as a result of similar breakdowns — or across the regular season wherein the Celtics were one of the worst-performing teams in the clutch of the last few decades, the disappointment would stick to him less.

Meanwhile for Embiid, there is nothing particular he hasn’t done. Other than win.

The second-round loss in 2019 to Toronto (and all the bounces of Kawhi Leonard’s jumper that it required) was a credible defeat in a hard-fought series in which there had to be a loser. The bubble sweep at the hands of the Celtics was more the result of the support on his team collapsing once Ben Simmons went down with an injury just before the playoffs. Embiid was a little banged up against the Hawks in 2021, while missing the first two games against the Heat last year.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to see reliability as a more and more important trait the higher up the Tiers we travel. And while there are explanations and extenuating circumstances for all of those losses (including series the Sixers should have won on paper in the last two playoff runs), it’s always something with Embiid and Philadelphia.

For me, the Hawks series sticks in my craw as the one a 1A player doesn’t drop. This isn’t to say that’s a permanent status, but reaching the conference finals (at least) last year would have helped!

If the above sounds nitpicky about either Embiid or Tatum, it is intended to be. The Tiers are explicitly about drawing fine distinctions between top players because, as we see every year, those little differences matter a great deal at this level. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if either Tatum or Embiid showed that those small edges are actually in their favor over the next few months. But unlike players above them, they haven’t quite proved it. Yet.

I supposed I can’t close without addressing the inevitable “But what about Nikola Jokić?” retort to the critique of Embiid. To which I would respond: Show me the series Denver (and Jokić) has lost in which they were favored? Show me where he hasn’t performed at an exemplary level across his entire playoff career, aside from a few ugly moments of poor discipline resulting in ejections.

Getting the to conference finals in the bubble, winning a series without Jamal Murray in 2021 and performing well at least on an individual level despite being the sole focus of Golden State’s game planning last year has been “proving it” relative to circumstances.

But heading into the playoffs as the top seed does put Jokić at risk. An early exit where his defensive limitations play a key part will mean at this point next year, Jokić will be the subject of this demand for proof either alongside or instead of Embiid.

NBA Pre-Postseason Player Tiers 2023: LeBron still shows flashes of greatness, Donovan Mitchell levels up
Seth Partnow
Apr 6, 2023

I first wrote about the possibility of LeBron James entering the decline phase of his career more than seven years ago. That season’s championship later, I’ve been a little squeamish about making that call again. But I think it’s time. This isn’t said out of malice or denigration of James’ career. It’s just a fact that every player eventually gets old. While some age more gracefully than others, they all eventually age out of Top Tier status.

Properly recognizing this slippage in real time is an enormously tricky part of the Tiers exercise, and is one of the areas where focusing on current championship equity over future career-and-contract projected value makes things more – rather than less – complicated.

If were I judging on the latter, the inevitability of the decline combined with the enormous contract and reality that a player of James’ stature will inevitably enjoy a larger role than their current skills might warrant make it easier to discount and downrate.

But if we’re focused more on the here and now it’s fraught. There have certainly been stretches this year where James has rolled back the years and looked just as dominant as ever. But those have been just that: stretches.

Flashes.

Even in those periods, it wasn’t quite the same. While he can be forgiven for not being a hustle-demon on defense as he nears 65,000 career combined regular season and playoff minutes, that can’t obscure that in his prime years he was just that. That hypothetical “What would the best and most tireless defender in the league do?” ghosts used by the Toronto Raptors to illustrate the early promise of tracking data, that was simulating LeBron.

And he hasn’t been that guy on a game-to-game basis for several years.

Defense isn’t the only evidence of slippage. Consider that his ratio of free throw to field goal attempts was .411 over his two strings in Cleveland while reaching .426 in his Miami years. Over his now five years in Los Angeles, it has dropped all the way to .288 (as of the time of this writing with a week to go in the regular season). This sort of trend is often an injury of a reduction in explosiveness or other impingements on athleticism. That James has managed to get to the basket as often as always is a credit to his skill and strength, but he isn’t creating the sorts of advantages that saw him live at the line until he was deep into his 30s.

On some level, it’s a measure of James’ greatness (for my money, he is one of three plausible candidates for GOAT status alongside Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but this isn’t the place for that debate) that I have to spend this much time explaining why I think a 38-year old is nearer the bottom than the top of the Top 10 in the league in terms of current championship-level impact.

Of course, based on my track record here, LeBron is going to reel back the years and have the Lakers storm deep into the Western Conference playoffs. While that would be a great story, it would also be contrary to expectations, at least to mine.

NBA Pre-Postseason Player Tiers 2023: Jaylen Brown’s, Anthony Edwards’ stock rises
Seth Partnow
Apr 5, 2023

The whole “82-game or 16-game player?” thing has been done to death. And yet there is still truth contained in the cliché. Especially in this era of pinball-like accumulation of gaudy stat lines, it’s difficult to compare and contextualize the performances of very good-to-great players against one another when most of what we’re seeing is matchups against lesser opposition.

In the playoffs, we not only get several head-to-head duels between players who might only see each other three times a season, but these contests arise in an environment of heightened preparation and attentiveness.

Evaluating head-to-head matchups doesn’t just mean series wins. A player can win the matchup but still be eliminated with a salient recent example being Kevin Durant outplaying Giannis Antetokounmpo over the seven games of the 2021 Eastern Conference semifinals, but the rest of the Bucks just barely overcoming that gap. Nor is one series dispositive, especially if it is closely fought.

But there are times when two standout players enter a series and it’s clear to everyone watching that one player is just flat out better than the other.

Meanwhile, the playoff environment helps differentiate between the quirky and the unstoppable. Even if a player’s left-handedness catches an opponent off guard early in a playoff series, by about the third quarter of Game 1, that edge is gone. On the other hand, players where you know exactly what is coming and can’t do a damn thing to stop them even with that information? Those are the stars.

Even within Tier 3 having that success is a separator. Why is Khris Middleton a sub-tier or two ahead of Bradley Beal? Only partially due to Beal’s failings, he hasn’t taken a playoff series and stamped his authority on it the way Middleton has with his ability to take and make tough shots at critical times.

I believe the ability to excel in the later rounds of the playoffs is, to a degree, learnable. Part of the reason teams often have to “fail before they succeed” is the need for players to experience having some of their pet moves rendered ineffective, requiring new wrinkles and counters. Without facing the adversity of poor playoff performance, the impetus to develop those wrinkles is, if not eliminated completely, at least blunted.

Of course, it isn’t a given that a player will struggle in the first exposure to the postseason. It is a function of where they rate among the league’s elite, but Stephen Curry and Nikola Jokić could operate at a high level from the first time they hit the postseason floor. Not to say they didn’t improve from there as well, but contrary to Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” lament, their s— did work in the playoffs.

And maybe that will happen for Zion Williamson or Tyrese Haliburton, as well, if and when they face this test. But that will have to wait as neither seems likely to get the opportunity to do so this season. Even should the Pelicans reach the playoffs proper, Williamson figures to have a limited role to play as he returns from a long-term hamstring injury.

While not yet having the chance to succeed in this sport isn’t the same as failure, it’s much closer to that than succeeding. As with all things in the Tiers process, advancement isn’t given; it’s taken.

NBA Pre-Postseason Player Tiers 2023: De’Aaron Fox, Aaron Gordon climb the ranks
Seth Partnow
Apr 4, 2023

There is no official definition or bright line separating “stars” and “role players” in the NBA. But the terms are useful shorthand for a real distinction between those who can provide value by finishing plays and those who can not only finish themselves but also create those opportunities.

Over past editions of the Tiers, as well as the reveals of the top three “pre-postseason” Tiers to come over the rest of this week, I’ve made clear that I believe the latter skill, when performed at a high level, is the most valuable, least replaceable trait in today’s league. Almost to a man, Tiers 1, 2 and 3 have been populated by above-average creators, with the only exceptions being Defensive Player of the Year-level interior players.

The league seems to agree with me, as the ability to create with the ball in hand is extremely well-compensated, even for players who have the ability to get buckets at more modest efficiencies than the true elite. In fact, for many of those players, this trait is, to my mind, overly well-compensated.

While more creation is rarely useless to a team, below a certain level of efficiency and skill, adding more on-ball juice might not help and could even hinder teams pursuing genuine playoff success. In terms of the cost in both cap dollars and the more complementary and additive skills which are being eschewed in service of more shot creation, the trade-off for “just OK” self-creation isn’t likely worth it.

This concept is often described as the difference between floor raising and ceiling raising. For a rebuilding team, anybody with reasonable creation skills helps. When starting from the ground up, there are plenty of gains to be made just in reducing or eliminating “going nowhere” type possessions. However, to run in the same circle as the league’s elite, a team needs more than mere competence. A good chunk of those chances has to become exceptional, which is where the stars come in.

The list of players who have taken a run at being able to carry star-level usage only to come up just short is long and varied. Some even manage modest levels of success — Jerami Grant in Detroit and now Portland is a recent example — but most see their shooting percentages drop nearly as fast as their teams in the standings. And I think most would agree that even a relative success like Grant, not to mention his team, would be better served in a more Aaron Gordon-like situation than as a secondary offensive option. Similarly, Andrew Wiggins’ time in Golden State has shown just how important it can be to not overtax a talented, if creatively flawed, player if an org wants to get the best out of him.

Still, it’s important for younger players to be given the chance to try and fail. The jump in value from “top role player” to “borderline All-Star” is considerable, and for any team on the rise likely worth risking an ugly shooting season on the possibility a player can thrive when given more to do. I certainly would not have expected Lauri Markkanen would not only just survive but also thrive after being given the keys to Utah’s offense, to the point where his All-Star selection wasn’t much of a surprise at all, while Jalen Brunson was one of the bigger snubs from this year’s squad after spending most of the year proving that he has much more in his bag than the “Luka’s sidekick and occasional stand in” character he played in Dallas would suggest.

The next player up to try his hand at breaking through the role-player ceiling will likely be Mikal Bridges. His scoring has been superb since being dealt to Brooklyn at the deadline, and while I expect plenty of regression — I will go ahead and guarantee he will not shoot over 50 percent on uncontested 3s over a full season — he’s shown pretty much every thing he could ahead of next season.

Brooklyn’s postseason is likely to be short and rough, the roster too callow and imbalanced to offer real threat to the teams above them in a series. So we’ll have to wait until next season to see if Bridges can reliably fill a primary or secondary scoring slot. Should he be able to do so, those skills combined with his All-League level defense will allow him to jump up into the Top 3 tiers which are typically off limits to perimeter role players.

He might not be the only one. This postseason won’t be the proving ground, but there are a few players around the league that I would like to see given the chance to do more, just to see if it works. There are reasons John Collins has been a near perennial center of trade rumors in part because of the sense that he might blossom once he is no longer a member of Trae Young’s rhythm section and can play the occasional solo himself.

But either player succeeding in breaking into the Top 3 tiers would be much more the exception rather than the rule.

Meanwhile, one of the hardest questions to answer among the players who can’t break through is when to prefer the top-level role player over more of a floor raiser who may not be quite as effective if placed in a more complimentary role.

The latter represent the players for whom I have most frequently been accused of “hating.” Which is a far cop, insofar as we are talking about the player archetype of the good-but-not-great scorer who has deficits as a defender or playmaker or both. I think that group of players more often holds a team back than helps on the way when trying to get from solid, middle-seeded playoff participant to conference-finals-or-bust contender level.

Which in a roundabout way explains why players like Domantas Sabonis or Julius Randle can make All-Star teams and end up in the same grouping as top role players like Bridges or Aaron Gordon. I’d be crazy to suggest that the second group is “better at basketball” than the first. But in terms of how players fit into the very specific competitive environment that is the NBA, sometimes you can do more by trying to do less.

NBA Pre-Postseason Player Tiers 2023: Klay Thompson, Karl-Anthony Towns among top 75
Seth Partnow
Apr 3, 2023

Evaluation, much like ball, never sleeps. Life in the NBA means constantly reassessing where you are and where you are going.

This holds across all aspects of a franchise. Can this coach take us to the next level? Do we trust this front office to formulate and execute a plan to push the team forward?

But most important is the talent on hand. How good are our players now, both as individuals and as a collective? Is there a hard ceiling on this group, or is there open sky above? If the team is still growing, is our best player good enough to be the best player on a top team?

These are difficult questions, made harder by the fact that it’s a zero-sum game with moving targets. Players themselves are not fixed entities. They get better, get older, go through slumps, find better situations, figure it out and/or lose confidence. At the same time, the landscape of the league is changing. In addition to the ever-higher bar set by the league’s overall skill level, different skill sets and player types gain or lose value as the collective style of play changes. Plus, at a certain point, it doesn’t matter how good your talent is on any sort of absolute scale. Rather, are they better than the five opposite of you?

2022-23 NBA Player Tiers: Russell Westbrook, RJ Barrett among those in Tier 5

Player Tiers are the best way I know to take a snapshot in time of not just how players order relative to one another, but also to note where there are real distinctions between groups. In some ways, the entire effort is based on frustration at the tendency to want to elide crucial differences. A team might have a “Top 10 Player” leading them, but there is a real distinction between that player being on the shortlist for “best guy in the league,” like a Giannis Antetokounmpo, and one who arguably takes one of the last couple of spots in that “Top 10,” such as Damian Lillard or Anthony Davis.

Might not seem like much, but when it comes to winning a championship, that s— matters.

As I’ve written in the introduction in each of the three offseasons in which The Athletic has produced Player Tiers, I’m intentionally considering Playoff performance and viability, as the relevant definition of “Top X Player” carries an implied “towards winning an NBA championship.” There are other ways to define greatness — remember that MVP is a regular season award, for example — but that’s the rubric I’m using.

So it might seem strange to release an updated Tiers list on the eve of the playoffs. If it can all change over the next few months, what’s the point of doing it now?

In a word: anchoring.

We can get so intimately familiar with players’ games over playoff runs that it can be tempting to focus too much on particular strengths or weaknesses that may be highlighted by the matchups they end up running into. Further, most of these guys will lose their last game, and it’s useful to have that pre-playoff evaluation to buttress against overreacting. It was tempting to downrate Jayson Tatum after some of his struggles toward the end of last season’s Finals. But, it was an important counterweight to have already considered where he rated, and also remember that I shouldn’t penalize him for reaching the Finals but failing to defeat the Final Boss more than I would have if Jimmy Butler’s last second pull-up dropped in Game 7 on the Eastern Conference Finals.

Read more: NBA Power Rankings for the week of April 3

Speaking of Tatum, another benefit of updating the tiers now is identifying which players have the most to gain or lose with their playoff performance. There simply isn’t a lot more certain guys can do in the regular season to ascend higher than they have been, while those without a lot of exposure in the postseason need the level of stress-testing to which a series or run will subject them. We might have suspicions about how Evan Mobley or De’Aaron Fox will fare in that crucible, but we won’t know until we see it.

As part of the rollout of the Tiers, I will lay out some of the questions that face players, as well as identifying and discuss the player archetypes that most often confound the effort to properly rate in this way.

Before diving in, I’d recommend reading the intros I’ve done the last few years— 2020, 2021 and 2022 — to refresh yourself on the methodology. While my research has shown that the Top 125 or so players in the league are considered to have a meaningful impact on teams’ title chances, this list will be limited to the Top 4 Tiers and 75 players. Though there are certainly some guys from outside this group who could make a leap, I’m not overly concerned with deciding those last 50 spots just now.

Rating the rookies
A near universal truth in the NBA is that rookies are bad. While obviously many first- year players go on to become quite good, each year one can count those who show not just promise, but genuinely positive impact, on one hand, with the thumb and a finger or three to spare.

According to Estimated Plus/Minus (the current gold standard for single-number impact metrics) here are the rookies who have been estimated to have had a positive impact of 1+ points/100 possessions in meaningful minutes for playoff teams over the last three seasons: Jose Alvarado of the Pelicans and the Knicks’ Immanuel Quickley. That’s the entire list. Utah’s Walker Kessler is currently rated at +2.1/100, while Memphis’ Brandon Clarke managed +1.0/100 in his 2019-20 rookie season, but their teams were each just on the outside looking in.

The four players mentioned are illustrative of another factor: the few rookies who are impactful are much more likely to project as career role players than provide much star equity. Guys who have enough potential to become NBA bucket-getters tend to receive the keys to an offense right away, where they almost universally learn that scoring efficiently against NBA defense is no joke.

Orlando’s Paolo Banchero will likely win Rookie of the Year in a landslide, and deservedly so, but as of this writing, his scoring efficiency is nearly 10 percent lower than the league average, only propped up that high by his near historical level of foul-drawing for a first- year player. This is entirely normal. Players who become stars take their lumps early as they learn what they can and can’t reliably do against this level of competition, while also honing their advantages to ever sharper points.

Who leads the NBA Rookie of the Year race? Paolo Banchero? Bennedict Mathurin?

So how to account for a player who is not good now, but we suspect will very much be so in the near future? If we’re using the Tiers as a snapshot of the league landscape, simply excluding them feels blinkered. So for rookies, I have always made an exception to my general rule of rating players on a “How much will they help toward a title this year?” scale. They will almost certainly get better, and soon.

Which is why, despite his rampant inefficiency and up-and-down defense — a profile I tend to downrate to an extreme degree relative to general perception — Banchero made my top 4 Tiers based on what I think he will be soon. He joins other players for whom I have given similar treatment in recent years, such as Zion Williamson, Ja Morant and Evan Mobley.

I strongly suspect that when I include Tier 5 in the offseason version, several of Kessler, Oklahoma City’s J. Williamses, Sacramento’s Keegan Murray and Indiana’s Bennedict Mathurin will appear as well. But even that is with the understanding that they are being graded on a slightly different curve than the rest of the league.

Short preliminary Overview:

Warriors won the 2022 title because of talent and experience.The younger talent not named Wiggins contributed relatively little however, so it’s not clear that the Dubs got this one because they were the more talented team. If the Bucks had Middleton available for this last championship run it’s not clear that the Dubs had enough for a 7 game series. Instead, it was Boston with not enough from Tatum in the finals. It’s very hard to believe that the 2022 Celtics were the best that the East had to offer.

Barring injuries, this year the Warriors have nothing in their way of a repeat trip to the Western Conference Finals. They are the most experienced team. They move the ball and themselves much better than any team in the league. They are now bigger with Wiseman. They are more talented with several young players that will undoubtedly improve their overall games. Getting to the finals may not be easy however. Younger teams like the Grizzlies, Pels, Suns and Wolves are all likely to improve and challenge for that other spot atop the West. Meanwhile the Nuggets and Clipps have all-star level talent returning in Murray and Leonard respectively. The Mavs are bigger with the additions of Wood and McGee and all signs point to Doncic as one of the favorites for MVP this season.

Side note: Zion Williamson, Ja Morant and Ant Edwards are so young and talented that it’s impossible to know how good they’ll be by the end of the season. All three are potentially generational talents along with Luka at about the same age. While it seems we know what Luka brings every night, there’s currently no way to know how good any of these other three will become should they stay healthy. As of right now there is no way to put a ceiling on any of these three players. Incredible young explosive talents and they’re all in the West.

In the East the Bucks look stacked and ready to return to the finals. They’ll get Middleton back, Grayson Allen stepped in nicely after DiVincenzo was lost to injury (he’s now with the Kings). Conaughton and Portis are only going to get better overall while remaining tough as nails. Joe Ingles is with them now – that should add more ball movement and spacing to what was already excellent. Boston could get back to the top, but they won’t do it as a consensus best in the East. Even if they didn’t have coaching and injury issues (Udoka is out and Brogdon is coming back from a recent injury. I believe Galinari is out indefinitely with an knee injury??). Still, Boston needs Tatum to do what he didn’t come close to doing in the 2022 playoffs: he needs to lead them and close consistently against great opponents. He’s not there yet.

Eastern Conference pre-preview

The Nets should be ready to run with both Kyrie and Ben Simmons alongside KD and Seth Curry. No proof yet, but if they want to claim “best starting 4 in the game” I doubt many would argue. They’ll have to prove it, and without knowing anything about team chemistry and Kyrie’s minutes there’s really no reason to put Nets atop the East yet. They need to be hitting on all cylinders in April -May, and no reason to think that will happen. Yet.

Sixers just seem way too thin, although there are good reasons to think that Maxey and Harden will figure out the ball-movement and scoring load now that they’ve had a preseason together. Embiid should be right there with Giannis and Luka atop the MVP race. Injuries are probably everything for this team, so look for a good amount of time management.

Miami is basically the same team as last season, though the big Serbian rookie, Nikola Jovic, could be an intriguing addition.

Cleveland now has Donovan Mitchell alongside Sexton. No clue how that will look, so not worth speculating yet. However, Cleveland is a very solid defensive team that is well coached and could figure out their offense well enough to make noise in the East.

Indiana has the ascending Haliburton in charge now, and there is every reason to look at him early in the season to see where this team is headed. Will he be taking the bulk of the shots? A conventional answer would be no, because that’s not his role. Or rather it hasn’t been. But is an efficient penetrating and dishing and shooting Haliburton the best option for the Pacers? They’ve got plenty of talent and some experience. Let’s see where their new leader takes them now that they’ve had an offseason together to figure is out.

The Bulls, Toronto and Hawks look to be loaded with talent at both ends. On any given night they can outrun and outscore any team in the league.

Detroit and Orlando will be interesting to watch. Both orgs look solid but the talent is super young if not raw. Expect the Pistons to upset any team on any given night if they aren’t taken seriously for 48 minutes.

Western Conference pre-preview

mohini Post authorOctober 15, 2022, 12:45 am
I’m pretty much writing off Porland, Utah, San Antonio and Sacramento this year but if you’ve heard something that might make any of these playoff teams let me know. I’m high on Houston as a dark horse and Pels at a potential top 5 in the West regular season should Zion stay healthy.

awoodsOctober 16, 2022, 3:44 am
I wouldn’t write Sacto off. With Mike Brown as head coach, Sabonis for a full season, a likely big step up from Davion Mitchell, and a rookie who looks really good in Keegan Murray, I think they’ll be in contention for a low level playoff berth. They also picked up Kevin Huerter from Atlanta in the off-season. I don’t share your optimism about Houston. I think there still a year or two away from sniffing the playoffs.

mohini Post authorOctober 16, 2022, 2:48 pm
I agree Sac has the talent, but they also have Fox who doesn’t seem to understand how other players similar to him are transitioning to all the ball sharing and movement. Only Kyrie and Trae Young seem to be able to get away with it, and I suppose Luka to some extent (but that’s an MVP candidate so not exactly someone Fox should be emulating). On the other hand, let’s say that Fox figures it out by end of April. I don’t see how they even get into the play-in with this insane lineup in the West:

Shoe ins for the western playoffs:

Suns
Dubs
Grizz
Mavs
Wolves
Clipps

Shoe ins for the western play-in if they don’t make it into the top 6:
Nuggets
Pels

I don’t consider the Lakers a shoe in for the play-in. So Kings need to fight these teams to get into the play in tourney …

Lakers
Blazers
Thunder
Rockets
Jazz
Spurs

I agree that the Kings look better on paper, and I think Sabonis will be an all star this year over AD and Green (not betting on it of course). But Fox will have to lead them with a whole slew of new talent, and I see some teams taking the next step faster than the Kings: Thunder and Rockets for instance. I expect both to be in the play-in with the Jazz, Spurs, Blazers and Kings looking in from the outside. We will see!

REPLY

mohini Post authorOctober 16, 2022, 4:12 pm
Somehow Pels were left off the list above. I guess I erased them, but Zion or not their in the play-in and probably in the playoffs above the Wolves but too much uncertainty around Zion.

REPLY

awoodsOctober 16, 2022, 7:56 pm
Pels are on the list above with the Nuggets as a play-in shoe-in if they don’t make the top 6. I don’t have that confidence in the Pelicans simply because Zion hasn’t proved he can stay healthy. I break down the West like this:

Will be in top 6:

Suns
Dubs
Grizz

Could be either top 6 or play-in depending on health:

Nuggets
T-Wolves

Likely in top 6, but could fall into play-in territory if one key player gets injured:

Mavs
Clippers

Likely in play-in, but could get into top 6 if things go right:

Lakers
Pelicans

Likely won’t make playoffs, but could get to play-in if things go right:

Blazers
Rockets

Won’t make playoffs:

Thunder
Spurs
Jazz

REPLY

mohini Post authorOctober 17, 2022, 3:35 pm
Got it, but I put the Pels in as a shoe in even if Zion gets hurt and is out for the entire season starting on Weds. They were awesome vs. the Suns. They’re a complete team without Zion. Outstanding defensively. Ingram should be an MVP candidate if Zion doesn’t play much this year. If Zion plays most of the season this is a top 5 team in the West IMO. They are better than the Suns and Mavs with Zion and neck and neck with them without him.

Just my opinion of course, but that’s what I saw in the playoffs vs. Suns who really didn’t deserve to get past them. Pels looked like the better team to me and that was with McCollum playing less than a full season.

Your list is also reasonable IMO. I’m guessing that the main difference between us isn’t the Pels but the Thunder. I think Giddey is an all-star and will lead them to the play-in tourney.

Where do you have the Kings though? I assume just above the Rockets and Blazers.

REPLY

awoodsOctober 17, 2022, 7:01 pm
Yep missed the Kings, but you have the correct spot for them. I’d put them in the Lakers and Pelicans category.

The 2022 NBA playoffs begin Sat Apr 16. First round matchups are as follows …

One week in the playoffs are shaping up as follows with these being the top stories … 1. Booker has a hamstring pull putting the Suns’s first round hopes to the test just as the 8th place Pelicans surge without Zion suited up. Pelicans have played outstanding defense in their first 2 games vs. Suns, and between McCollum and Ingram there appears to be scoring when they need it as well. Right now (before the 3rd game) this series is almost a toss up as long as Booker is out. The Suns should still have the edge, because of depth and overall talent especially in the middle. 2. Nets are losing 0-2 to the Celtics who have looked scary-good defensively in their first 2 games in Boston. Nets have had their chances though, with Kyrie doing his thing and Drummond looking like an immovable force down low when he’s in. But KD hasn’t shot well, and it’s clear that Boston is the reason for that. Even he says so! The series comes to Brooklyn for the 3rd game however and Simmons is expected to suit up for his first game after that. Regardless, the Celtics look incredible and will be very hard to beat. Nets are one team that can do it though. Must watch TV! 3. The Wolves can score as well as any team in the NBA. It’s early, and that statement is only true in theory right now but it’s already clear that playing the Wolves well defensively may not make a bit of difference if they can score in bunches the way that they have. And they defend too! Still, they’re young and make mistakes but it appears they have what’s needed to make this first series close vs. Grizzlies who haven’t quite figured them out yet even with the series in the Grizz favor 2-1 so far. 4. Tyrese Maxey has arrived. He’s arguably the Sixers best player right now, and not because Embiid has played poorly but rather because Maxey has been so active at both ends he’s dictating how the games have gone so far. Scottie Barnes has been out for 2 games however, and the Raptors have shown signs of life. However, between Harden’s assisting and everyone else kicking in at both ends the Sixers are seemingly on their way to the 2nd round. 5. Jalen Brunson is playing outstanding ball and leading the Mavs against the Jazz with Doncic out. Mavs look deep, and it’s especially impressive that they can beat a team with a huge rebounder/shot blocker/defender in Gobert. Dinwiddie has been impressive as well. Doncic expected back soon from his short time out, but he may not be needed at all until the second round. 6. Warriors are playing exactly as they should be playing vs. Nuggets and exactly as one might expect if they had been watching all season. That’s why I have them at #6 here: it’s no surprise that Poole has improved after playing all season. It’s no surprise that Green is running the offense as well as he did earlier in the season. Curry is also playing as expected albeit off the bench now that Poole has played so well in the starting lineup. MAYBE Klay Thompson’s shooting % is a surprise but it shouldn’t be. Klay is being Klay. 7. Chicago has shown some life vs the Bucks and has made that series exciting, but even with Middleton out for several games with an MCL sprain it shouldn’t keep the Bucks from moving onto the 2nd round in 6 games tops. Portis had an eye injury that took him out of the loss two days ago, but he’s due back which is big while Middleton sits out the rest of the series. 8. Capela was injured prior to the playoffs beginning, but with Miami hitting on all cylinders I don’t see how it matters. The Heat are incredibly deep and have played well at both ends. Capela *might* be back before the end of the series, so we’ll see then if he can make a difference. In any case Butler could be mentioned as the current “best player in the NBA” right now, but until he shows that he can put up huge numbers consistently I’ll leave him off the list. Butler has scored 96 points on 55%+ FG in their 3-0 series vs. Hawks.

The top stories rolling into the new season …

Kyrie may or may not play this year – the latest reason having something to with (paraphrasing) “getting the vaccine or not is about being true to yourself”, or something like that, but it’s really not possible to know for sure. He probably will play, but right now by NYC mandate he can’t play in NYC. Regardless he’s made it clear that he’ll just up-n-quit if the Nets try to trade him and KD says he’s backing his friend and won’t allow a trade. Meanwhile KD has been playing at an incredible level consistently through end of season last year, the playoffs and the Olympics. While it’s almost impossible to say who’s the best in the league going in KD has to be at least tied for first, and with Harden being just as good on any given night, a good if not great supporting cast and excellent coaching and management, the Nets are an easy pick for Eastern Conference Finals action next summer.

Giannis somehow became a better player in the finals series vs. the Suns. He wasn’t that player in the first 2 games of that series, but afterward he became perhaps the most dominant player in the playoffs that the league has ever seen. The stuff of legend. LeBron, Russell, Jordan, Kareem, Oscar, Wilt, Bird … Giannis was as good or better for at least 3 out of the final 4 games and arguably played the best game of any player ever in the final win over Phoenix. Can he sustain that improvement? It’s clear he has the drive, but will it be needed to win games and stay atop the East with an also-improved Jrue Holiday and a seemingly more assertive Kris Middleton? Bucks lost Tucker to FA, but other players stepped up for them in the playoffs and also seem improved. How good will they be this season? We’re going to find out – COVID isn’t as likely to dominate results throughout the season this year and it seems very unlikely to affect the 2022 playoffs. But the Bucks aren’t favorites to win it all going in … that billing goes to the Lakers and Nets. As if Giannis needed more motivation to get back to the finals again.

Steph Curry didn’t win MVP last year, but he could have and likely would have if the ball bounced the Warriors’ way once or twice more last year. He was phenomenal, and every bit deserving of the best player in the league status right there with the others on that short list. How good will the Warriors be when a healthy Wiseman suits up to play alongside rookies Kuminga and Moody (both will be works in progress)? Looney will continue his improving swing upward, Poole has to be the most underrated in the league. The Warriors are hungry and ready to get back to the finals, and can do just that even without Klay who’s expected back later this season.

Jokic … MVP who did it after losing weight and developing a stronger work ethic last year. How much better can he get? No one knows, but if he gets better at both ends he’s right there with the others above as best in the league. Even so, the Nuggets have holes to plug with a sort of revolving lineup with their smaller guards and wings and Murray out indefinitely with the ACL tear. They’ll need more than just MPJ and Barton coming to the rescue. Hard to see where they’ll get it early on.

Kawhi had surgery for the partial ACL tear and will be out for at least half the season, but the Clipps were a force and arguably the best team in the West before he went out in the playoffs. Even then Reggie Jackson and the rest almost got by the Suns in the playoffs. No reason to count out the Clippers and in fact maybe the best bet to come out of the West or at least right there with a handful of other teams.

LeBron has a problem this year, or maybe several of them. He may still be the best player in the league right there with KD and Steph and Giannis and Jokic and Embiid, but what does Westbrook actually do for his chances to go for another title? And beyond that all the older guys on the roster? Early on it’s very hard to see why the Lakers would be favored to win it all this year, but then … he *is* LeBron so foolish to not include him atop this list.

Embiid has a lot to prove this year. If he had played just a few more games he would likely have been named MVP. Instead Jokic was so consistent and reliable that he was the more deserving. Now Embiid gets to run it back without Ben Simmons who almost certainly won’t be part of a Sixers playoff season this time. But who will be for that matter? Jury is still out as the Sixers shore up their roster with Simmons being disruptive early on.

Are the Suns for real? No one expected them to be that good last year. CP3 is another year older, but Ayton and Booker should be in their primes. It’s almost impossible to tell how well they’ll do this year, but they should be better with their young guys all improving at both ends. Ayton especially who could be an all star this year or will at least get votes. Cam Johnson has already shown signs of being among the most consistent and reliable scorers in the league albeit on fewer shots than most others of that ilk, but is Mikal Bridges the right guy for them as their ironman yet undersized defensive wing? The Suns have lacked playmaking and size, and Bridges doesn’t help at all in those departments. It’s hard to see how he’ll be able to anchor the defense alongside Ayton with the likes of LeBron or Kawhi or George backing him down. The good news is that the Suns won’t need to worry about Giannis or KD until the finals should they get there.

The Jazz … so hard to say how good they are since Mitchell wasn’t near 100% in the playoffs last year. They showed signed of brilliance going in though, and it seemed Mitchell’s role had changed somewhat as Clarkson and Conley took over the playmaking and some of the scoring. Jazz are deep and loaded and healthy and have plenty to prove. No one will be surprised to see them atop the West again this year.

The Heat … they’re also stacked with talent and now have Kyle Lowry at the helm adding both toughness and and a winner to the composition. Will this be the year for Tyler Herro to be a consistent force? I doubt anyone will take them lightly, as they should be a top 4 defensive team that can score. A work in progress at least for the first part of the season, but a lot of reasons to be optimistic about their chances this year. Only problem: Nets, Bucks and Sixers … can the Heat somehow get past them en route to the conference finals? Can they get past the Hawks and the Celtics and the Knicks for that matter? What about the Bulls who appear to be stacked and ready for a deep playoff run if they can come together quickly.

The East looks great. At least on paper going in.

And then there’s the rest of the league where there’s simply way too much to comment on here without getting too speculative. Suffice to say there are a handful of teams that could rise to the top and few would be surprised to see it as the league is now absolutely loaded with young talent almost across the board: Zion, Morant, LaMelo, Edwards, Trae, Doncic, Tatum. And will any of the rookies help to push their teams into the playoffs? Really hard to see who and which team that might be early on, although three teams with zero expectation for success yet great potential to spoil the fun for others are the Rockets, Pistons and Thunder. That’s how deep the league is now with most teams having multiple talents able to dominate on any given night. There are only a few exceptions, but hard to see which ones early on.

The 2021 NBA playoffs begin May 22nd. First round matchups are as follows …

Season starts Tuesday December 22nd. Abbreviated to 72 games due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Top stories going in …

• Brooklyn Nets start off fresh with an overhaul: healthy Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving at the helm. Steve Nash coaching with Mike D’Antoni as his assistant.
• Bucks add Jrue Holiday in trade for Bledsoe and George Hill
• Lakers come off a championship losing Rajon Rondo, Danny Green & Dwight Howard and adding up Montrezl Harrell, Dennis Shroeder and Marc Gasol
• Warriors lose Klay Thompson to an achilles tear, but pickup James Wiseman #2 overall in the 2020 draft. Kelly Oubre joins Wiggins on the wing.
• Clippers lose Harrell and Shamet and add Ibaka and Luke Kennard. Doc Rivers released. Ty Lue replaces him as head coach. Chauncey Billups assistant.
• Sixers have new coach and GM in Doc Rivers and Daryl Morey respectively.
• Houston trades Westbrook to Wizards for John Wall. Add Christian Wood and new coach Stephen Silas
• Suns add Chris Paul in trade involving Oubre.
• Atlanta adds Okongwu from draft and Bogdan Bogdanovic, Rondo and Galinari in free agency.

Is the 2020 draft pool weaker than years past or stronger? Why are people so sure there aren’t several gems at the top of this class?

With COVID shortening the college season and killing the tourney, and with sports and travel being shut down for months how can even the best talent scouts be sure about what this draft will bring? Specifically, where is the objective thinking that places LaMelo Ball above guys like Advija or other international prospects. How can anyone be so sure Anthony Edwards is a better #1 than say Obi Toppin? Same question even if a GM is trying to choose best player instead of choosing based solely on need.

So many unknowns, but it’s probably a good guess that the guys who know how to find talent are going to succeed even if picking out of the lottery. How will that influence Minnesota and Golden State with their #1 & 2 picks respectively? If everyone agrees those teams should trade their picks then why would a team (like Phoenix just as an example) trade their #10 pick for #2 if there’s a good chance they can get someone similar to an Obi Toppin at #10?

Would be great to know which teams have scouts that defied their respective lockdowns and traveled around meeting with players anyhow. And those players having plenty of time to meet and workout etc etc ..

Unpredictable may be the best word to describe what comes out of this draft. We may not know for a couple years.

The 202 NBA playoffs begin Monday Aug 17th in Orlando, Florida. First round matchups are as follows …

East:
(1) Bucks vs. (8) Magic
(2) Raptors vs. (7) Nets
(3) Celtics vs. (6) 76ers
(4) Pacers vs. (5) Miami

West:
(1) Lakers vs. (8) Blazers
(2) Clippers vs. (7) Mavericks
(3) Nuggets vs. (6) Jazz
(4) Rockets vs. (5) Thunder

Looking at this by series, maybe most appropriate to start with the reigning champion Raptors …

While the near-sighted view might put the Nuggets and Thunder into the category of “most pleasant surprise”, that prize goes to the Raptors who have been doing it all season long. And while the Thunder might be coming together team-wise at the right time, it’s the Raptors that have been there since the beginning of the season. The roles are well defined. Everyone plays defense on every play, and the switching and paint protection is as swift and accurate as any team in the playoffs. Their best player (Siakem) is an unselfish passing and rebounding scorer/defender who allows other players (all scorers) to touch the ball often enough to make the right decision quickly. A la Warriors and the Spurs before them, no coincidence there. It’s turned Van Vleet into one of the leagues most feared point-per-minute scorers, it’s brought Anunoby into the spotlight as a #1 or #2 option offensively and has resurrected Ibaka’s offensive abilities turning him into a threat and matchup problem for any team when he’s shooting it well. They don’t have Giannis but they do have the better team than the Bucks. They might be even better than last year’s team headed into the playoffs. There shouldn’t be any surprises when they sweep the Nets in the first round. The Nets might win one game, but it won’t be without a lot of raised eyebrows. They’ll need to shut down Toronto’s offense which seems near impossible.
 
Elsewhere, the Blazers face the Lakers in round 1 …

Portland may be the team that benefited the most with the long break in the season. With year-long injuries to Nurkic and Collins, their front court took a big hit for much of the season. On the season, Portland scored 115.1 ppg and gave up 116.2 ppg. In the bubble and with Nurkic and Collins healthy though, Portland’s offense took off, scoring more than 120 ppg in all but two games. Of course Dame was brilliant. Defensively, however, Portland is still giving up a lot of points. It appears it will take their defense longer to coalesce, but with a first round match-up against the Lakers, there may not be enough time for that to happen.
 
On the Lakers side, the long layoff may have been a blessing in disguise. LBJ and AD both averaged more than 34 mpg on the season. Now rested for the playoffs and any nagging injuries healed up, they should be ready to go. They have some question marks though. Avery Bradley opted out of the restart and Rajon Rondo is injured and out for the rest of the season. Both were key contributors to one of the best defenses in the league. The Lake Show went 3-5 in the bubble, but they had little to play for once they wrapped up the top seed early. Still, their defense in the bubble was not nearly as good. They should still get past Portland, but this could be a problem the deeper they go in the playoffs.
 
I expect to see Dame Dollar go off against the Lakers in this series, but it won’t be enough. Nurkic looked good in his return, but facing off against AD will be a bigger challenge. LBJ and AD will likely have to play a lot of minutes, because they are not deep. I see the Lakers winning the series 4-2.
 
Looking at #1 vs. #8 in the East, Bucks vs. Magic…
 
The Magic had one of the best defenses in the league, giving up just 108.3 ppg. The problem is that they scored just 107.3 ppg. Orlando lost SF Jonathan Isaac to an ACL tear during a bubble game. He was probably the best defender on the team and had a team-leading 1.6 spg and 2.3 bpg. That will put a crimp in their defense, which hurts big time when going up against the best offense in the league. Vucevic and Fournier lead the offense, but Aaron Gordon seemed to take a small step back with his shooting.
 
The Bucks went 3-5 in the bubble, but like the Lakers, they had nothing to play for with the #1 seed wrapped up early. They had the best scoring offense in the league and a top 10 defense, resulting in a league best 10 point scoring margin. There is pretty much no stopping the Freak in the paint, so as long as the distance shooting from Middleton, Bledsoe, Matthews, Korver, and Hill stays true to form, they’ll be hard to stop. The Bucks enter the playoffs at full strength.
 
If this was a normal season, I might give the Magic a chance to win one game at home. Even though all the games are in Orlando, they won’t have a home crowd cheering them on. I see the Bucks mopping the floor with the Magic and winning the series 4-0.
 
Moving on to the second match-up in the West, #2 Clippers vs. #7 Mavericks.
 
The Mavericks played poorly in the bubble (3-5 record), except for Luka of course. Luka averaged 30 ppg, 10 rpg, and 9.7 apg despite playing just 13 minutes in the final bubble game. However, outside of Luka and Porzingis, the Mavs don’t get consistent games from anyone else. Against a deep team like the Clippers, they probably don’t stand much chance.
 
The Clippers only went 4-4 in the bubble, but they didn’t have much to play for with their spot locked up early enough. They also had various players miss games because of quarantine, minor injuries, or rest. Kawhi & PG are one of the top duos in the league, perhaps better than LBJ/AD because of how well they play defense. Kawhi is also the very definition of clutch. Consider the bubble to just be a warm-up for the Clips with the real thing to begin in the playoffs.
 
The Mavs don’t have enough depth to compete with the Clippers. The Clips may be missing a few players for the first game or two, so I can see the Mavs winning a game or two, but that is as far as it gets. Figure the Clippers to win the series 4 games to 1.
 
While the Clippers might be the most talent-laden team, the Nuggets aren’t too far behind them. More importantly, the amount of fresh talent coming off the bench allows the Nuggets to maintain their frenetic offensive pace while giving both Jokic and Murray time to rest. And now with Michael Porter Jr. rising to the level of a superstar, both Jokic and Murray should have more room to operate in order to do what the Nuggets do as well as any team: get high percentage shots while forcing defenses away from their game plan(s). But this is the Jokic show regardless – he looks nimble and energetic after the 25 lb weight loss and conditioning. For the first time in his career Jokic appears driven to perform at the highest level, and that means faster footwork that was already the best in the league. Expect the Nuggets to create matchup nightmares for all teams they face – opponents will likely be getting in foul trouble early and often starting with their first round opponent in the Jazz. It’ll be interesting to see how the refs call the contact down low in this series, as Gobert is not only the best in the business protecting the paint he’s also been the beneficiary of many-an-unblown whistle in 2019-2020.
 
However, as odd as it may seem, if the Nuggets face the Clippers in the second round they’ll be outmanned. Even if Jokic abuses (or just neutralizes) Harrell for most of the series, it will likely come at the expense of fast break opportunities for Kawhi and company who, better than any other team, dictate ball movement and pace at both ends of the court. Regardless, that series if it happens won’t likely be about shot selection or even foul trouble but rather FG%. Maybe that seems obvious, but with both teams able to get their shots and defend extremely well on average, that series (if it happens) may simply come down to which team has more guys hitting their well-selected shots.
 
The Rockets open up against the Thunder. While Harden wouldn’t surprise anyone by getting straight back to his MVP form, that’s not going to be what decides the series. Before the recent injury to Westbrook (quad) the Thunder was already playing at a higher level at both ends, and with Chris Paul’s squad coming together in all ways at both ends this isn’t the matchup D’Antoni wants in the first round. The first game of the series will be revealing, as it shouldn’t be close with Houston having no way to replace the impact of a sitting Westbrook. Against almost any other team the Rockets could be expected to compete on scrap and energy alone, but that’s also where the Thunder lives. Unless Westbrook can return in the second and third games to play big minutes at his usual off-the-charts level, the Thunder will likely win the series because of the poise and teamwork they’ve displayed and improved upon all season long.
 
The 3-6 matchup in the East was supposed to be a good one. The Celtics and the 76ers were both conference semifinalists last year, both have fairly young squads that could be expected to improve this year and both brought in new studs–Al Horford in Philly and Kemba Walker in Boston. This series should have been a great rumble. Then it fell apart for the Sixers. Budding superstar Ben Simmons went down with a knee injury and is out for the season. Superstud Joel Embiid has been battling nagging ankle and hand injuries. They managed a 4-4 record in the bubble, but 3 of the wins were against non-playoff teams and the 4th was against a Westbrook-less Rockets team that also wasn’t letting any starter play more than 24 minutes in the final bubble game. Against teams fighting for the playoffs or playoff-bound, the Sixers couldn’t manage a win. The loss of Simmons will be virtually impossible to overcome.
 
On the Celtics side, they went 5-3 in the bubble and one of those losses was in the last game when they rested all their starters. Those starters form one of the best starting groups in the league. They’ve got 3 starters averaging better than 20 ppg, 3 averaging better than 4 apg, 3 averaging better than 6 rpg, and 3 averaging better than 1 spg. Jayson Tatum made a big jump toward superstar status this year and is still just 21 years old. Jaylen Brown did too and he’s just 23 years old. Gordon Hayward finally got healthy after two lost years and started to look like himself again. Kemba Walker replacing Kyrie Irving at PG looked like a much better team fit. When you get past the starters though, the Celtics don’t have a great bench. They also lack a solid inside presence. If Embiid is healthy enough, he should have big games against the Celtics. It won’t be enough though. No Simmons makes this an easy series for the Celts. We’ll give the Sixers one game. Boston likely to prevail 4 games to 1.
 
Finally, we come to the Pacers and Heat, the 4 and 5 seeds in the East. Coincidentally, they played each other in the final bubble game with the seeding up in the air and…neither team cared. Both teams rested their stars and the Pacers scrubs beat the Heat scrubs for the 4th seed. Unfortunately–for the Pacers–they played each other two games earlier at full strength and the Heat pasted the Pacers by 22 points. The Pacers are hamstrung with Sabonis’ injury and it is unclear if and when he might be back. He averaged almost twice as many rebounds as anybody else on the team. That will be hard to replace. And while the long layoff gave Oladipo additional time to heal, he still doesn’t look like he is completely back. The Pacers are deep though, going nine deep of players averaging 20+ minutes per game and 7 of them being double-digit scorers.
 
As deep as the Pacers are, the Heat are even deeper. 10 players average 20+ minutes per game with 8 of them going off for double digits in scoring. Then there’s the Jimmy “I don’t suffer fools” Butler factor. It appears that Butler found a team this year that were all on the same championship mentality page, unlike last year’s 76ers. Pat Riley/Eric Spoelstra and Jimmy Butler are a good fit of player to management. Butler appears to have brought out the best from Bam Adebayo, turning him from a bench player to an All-Star. There’s just no way that Butler doesn’t get out of the 1st round. The Heat are a dark horse in the East and won’t have a problem with a Sabonis-less Pacers. At best, the Pacers win 2 games in this series.