Grading Every NBA Team’s 2023-24 Season So Far
Which teams have surprised and disappointed the most this season? With two-thirds of the season in the books, we’re handing out report cards.Grading Every NBA Team’s 2023-24 Season So Far
Which teams have surprised and disappointed the most this season? With two-thirds of the season in the books, we’re handing out report cards.
Self-discovery is a tricky process in the NBA, where injuries can blunt trajectories, trades can reconfigure them entirely, and coaching changes can make an old group sing like new. Now that every team has crossed the 55-game mark, we’re officially two-thirds of the way finished with the regular season, which feels like a good time to stop to take note of how everyone is doing.
Think of these grades as a post-midterm assessment. All the group projects have been turned in, and there isn’t a lot going on until final exams. For winning teams that already know who they are, it’s a maintenance period to keep up their current success, potentially test the buyout market, and most importantly, avoid burnout. Some are still working out the kinks, finding out who they are, while others are so destitute that they might as well use this time to fuck around with a new major, take a few open studies courses—see whether anything sticks.
And I know how some people feel about this kind of thing, but I’m grading on a curve that’s based on personnel, expectations, injuries, and how these teams have managed the problems they came into the season with. It’s why lottery teams like the Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs have higher grades than the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers, who have disappointed relative to their own expectations. Without further ado, let’s dive in and analyze the teams in alphabetical order.
Atlanta Hawks: C-
Season record: 25-32
The Hawks just can’t seem to kick the spiritual malaise that’s haunted them since they made the 2021 Eastern Conference finals. No coaching or personnel changes have moved the needle for Atlanta, which has become a perpetual play-in team. Jalen Johnson remains the team’s brightest spot. What I will say, though: Dejounte Murray has become criminally underrated. After a rough transition adjusting to playing next to Trae Young—and in hindsight, was that ever going to work?—Murray’s reputation has suffered from what I’ll call the change effect. It happened to James Harden last season, to a degree: A star, asked to make sacrifices he’s never made before, gets pilloried for his team’s failure instead of being credited for making a stumbling effort. But adjustment takes time. Murray’s catch-and-shoot 3-point percentage has steadily improved, and talk of his defensive demise has been exaggerated. He’s still in the top 10 in deflections, and I think his quickness would be more valuable in the Western Conference, where he’d be an asset against the likes of Steph Curry, Jamal Murray, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. On top of that, he’s made wholesale improvements as a scorer. Kudos to the Hawks for not selling low on Murray at the trade deadline, but I think it might be time to put the Young era to bed.
Boston Celtics: A+
Season record: 45-12
The Celtics are star-studded, battle-tested, deep, and versatile. Their top seven players are all 3-point shooters and plus defenders, all specializing in different kinds of matchups. They have every regular-season indicator of playoff success: top-five offensive and defensive ratings, a 23-11 record against teams .500 and above, and reliable rebounding. And they’re hardly burdening their top stars. Jayson Tatum’s and Jaylen Brown’s minutes are also down, which is a good sign, considering the duo finished last postseason third and sixth in total minutes, despite failing to reach the Finals.
I’ve spent most of the season in search of reasons to doubt the Celtics, a form of protective hypervigilance that comes from years of bearing witness to deep but self-defeating playoff runs. You can’t help but get some postseason flashbacks when the offense breaks down in the fourth or Brown commits a costly turnover.
Talented as they are, the Celtics haven’t fully shaken the execution amnesia that befalls them in inopportune moments. But they are stumbling less in the fourth than ever, and that’s progress. The past can be a harbinger of the future, but it can also be a road map to eventual success. This version of Boston, thanks to Tatum’s advanced playmaking and Kristaps Porzingis’s floor spacing, is more capable of stretching stingy playoff defenses than any previous iteration.
Boston is first in points off post-ups and first in catch-and-shoot points. It’s the only team in the top five in both metrics, expertly leveraging one for the other. Finding a balance between movement and mismatch hunting is important, but Boston is really at its best when it exploits mismatches through movement, like it does below:
The problem is that the Celtics don’t always play like this, humoring too many offense-flattening isolations for a team with this much variability and firepower. There are times when you wish they had a better floor general to suss out the best course of action, especially when the Jays get silly and selfish with leads. Plus, it feels like a sick test of fate for a team that’s already so combustible to hitch its wagon to the 3-point line. Boston leads the NBA in the percentage of points it generates from beyond the arc, and it doesn’t crash the boards enough to offset the variance its misses create. On the nights when the Celtics don’t beat themselves, slowing them down from beyond the arc is the surest way to victory: They are 4-9 when they shoot 32 percent or worse from 3.
Increasingly, I’m finding reasons to believe. Maybe the Celtics have taken their foot off the pedal in February because every team destined for greatness seems to slow down around this time of year, saving their second wind for late May. Maybe they’ve lost more games at home lately because the early-season pressure to go undefeated needed to be relieved.
They’re a far cry from the young team that choked in the NBA Finals two years ago. They’ve learned from the Warriors and Heat, and their cumulative failures have molded them into one of the most complete teams I’ve ever seen. I’m ready to get hurt again.
Brooklyn Nets: F
Season record: 21-35
The Barclays Center has the energy of a dilapidated WeWork building: empty, aside from spare parts that remind you of the Nets’ once promising auspices and cataclysmic failure, the muted color palette and plain hardwood suggesting a preference for versatility and functionality over a set-in-stone identity. That’s exactly who the Brooklyn Nets, worse in record than talent, are: a team that can’t decide what it wants to be and isn’t doing much of anything as a result.
The front office’s decision to fire Jacque Vaughn, who hasn’t commanded much respect—or much of an offense—doesn’t come as a surprise. Vaughn’s sign-off in his farewell to the Nets included the phrase amor fati, meaning “to love one’s fate,” which is a nice sentiment reflecting both his positive spirit and his rudderless approach to X’s and O’s. He always felt like a high-end developmental coach miscast as a head honcho.
The guy the Nets want to build their franchise around, Mikal Bridges, expressed frustration with Vaughn all season, from his tepid response to Vaughn’s rest strategies to his advocacy for Cam Thomas to start. Using Bridges, a well-liked and ideal complementary star, as a sweetener to attract bigger fish to Brooklyn works only if he’s buying what he’s selling. I doubt they’d have the juice to entice an unhappy Luka Doncic or even Donovan Mitchell, considering the Knicks’ rise and Cleveland’s recent success. For the sheer theater, it would be incredible if Trae Young played across the bridge from Madison Square Garden. Maybe Brooklynites would start going to games again, just for the treat of booing him? But the Nets have work to do to become an attractive destination again. The Dennis Smith Jr. reclamation project has been the most inspiring thing about the team this season. Maybe interim coach Kevin Ollie—or Mike Budenholzer, whom they could target this summer—can reinvigorate the culture.
You can’t help but wonder whether they would have been better off trading Bridges to the Rockets in exchange for the picks they relinquished in the James Harden deal and trading everyone else after that. Now, the Nets are positioned to overpay Nic Claxton to retain him. On the other hand, their stubborn insistence on keeping Kevin Durant as long as they did last season is why they were able to get Bridges, Johnson, and a hoard of picks for him.
Charlotte Hornets: C-
Season record: 15-42
It’s been hard watching Miles Bridges’s slow exoneration (via ongoing omission of his history) play out all season, a predictable but nevertheless wearing process facilitated on the court, by the courts, and in our unrelenting transaction-industrial complex. It’s a topic deserving of its own column, but for now, I’ll just say this: If watching Bridges get thrown around in trade talks like he’s just some guy—and not like he got the second chance of a lifetime after being charged with physically abusing the mother of his children—has been distressing for you, I’m sorry. I know it sucks. Sports are incredible, but they have a way of ignoring nuance—for better and for worse.
The Ringer’s Top 100 Players in the NBA rankings are back! Check in throughout the 2024-25 season for updated analysis on the players who are making a splash.
Bridges remains a Hornet after charges of violating a protection order, misdemeanor child abuse, and injury to personal property were dropped earlier this month. Instead, Terry Rozier, P.J. Washington, and Gordon Hayward were traded before the deadline, in exchange for Grant Williams, Vasilije Micic, Seth Curry, Davis Bertans, and Tre Mann, who has boosted Charlotte’s offense with movement and has been a breath of fresh air for a team that was 26th in assists before the deadline. Charlotte also picked up one first-rounder and two second-round picks.
LaMelo Ball is still working his way back from injury, but Brandon Miller has hit his stride. He averaged 21.9 points and shot 38.9 percent from beyond the arc over his 15 games before the All-Star break, displaying a combination of fluidity, explosiveness, two-way potential, and an ability to toggle on and off the ball that should pair well with LaMelo once he returns.
Chicago Bulls: D
Season record: 27-30
The emergence of Coby White in Zach LaVine’s absence was all the evidence this team needed that relinquishing the old can have exciting, future-affirming benefits. Even ownership was on board with a rebuild. And yet … the Bulls stood pat at the deadline. They’re now in position to either let DeMar DeRozan walk in free agency or overpay him like they did with Nikola Vucevic last summer. If I were DeMar, I would walk, by the way. Just look at Lauri Markkanen and Jimmy Butler. Everyone’s happier once they leave Chicago. Bulls fans deserve better. Dalen Terry and Terry Taylor deserve better. Alex Caruso deserves better.
Cleveland Cavaliers: A
Season record: 37-19
The slight discomfort of reintegrating Darius Garland and Evan Mobley into the Cavaliers’ starting lineup is a gift disguised as a quandary. Dean Wade simplified things on both ends, and Isaac Okoro hit 39 percent of his wide-open 3s, but the blunt-force efficiency of surrounding Donovan Mitchell with shooters and a rim runner likely would have become somewhat predictable in the postseason.
Together, the Garland-Mitchell duo—two expert pick-and-roll practitioners—has a much higher ceiling and presents a more diverse attack, but they’re still refining their decision-making. Take this crunch-time finish against the Bulls last week:
We start with a Garland-Mitchell pick-and-pop that results in Mitchell missing a contested floater; both Garland and Mobley were open from 3, where the big man was shooting 41.7 percent on limited attempts before the All-Star break. On the next play, Mitchell asks for the ball with Nikola Vucevic mismatched on him, but he backs off, allows Garland to dance, and smiles and points when his teammate hits the stepback 3. Bad process, good results—and tons of efficiency left on the cutting-room floor. If Garland and Mitchell can refine their decision-making, their two-man game and mismatch-hunting potential will be off the charts.
The new starting lineup has a good but not great net rating of 3.5 in its past nine games, but I’m encouraged by what looks like an earnest effort at integration. It would be easy to stagger Garland and Mobley, as well as Jarrett Allen and Mobley, but it’s important for the new lineup to get these reps in hopes of fielding a more dynamic offense this postseason. Mobley’s range and dynamism have slowly been expanding. It’s just a question of whether he can evolve at the rate Cleveland needs him to. And Allen’s clearly been working on his 14-footer.
Most importantly, all nine of Cleveland’s most played lineups have boasted a positive net rating since Garland’s return, while they were falling off a cliff without Mitchell. The Cavs can basically go 10-deep in the postseason. It’s just a matter of figuring out who fits where. Max Strus, whose lateral quickness and sneaky stumpiness make him an ideal isolation defender, has been the glue—the answer at the wing spot they didn’t have last year. Sam Merrill is redefining what it means to be a sharpshooter. Mitchell is averaging career highs in assists, rebounds, and steals while posting a 60 percent true shooting percentage. He’s also taking defense more seriously than ever. His deflection numbers are up there with Alex Caruso’s and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s, and since the New Year, opponents are shooting 1.5 percent worse when Mitchell is guarding them. Those aren’t world-beating numbers, but it’s a tactically meaningful development for a guy who was surgically minced apart by Luka Doncic and Jalen Brunson two postseasons ago.
Cleveland’s playoff meltdown last year—and its ensuing admissions, headlined by Allen’s memeable observation about just how bright the lights at Madison Square Garden can be—will painfully linger until the team gets a second chance. But it seems like they’ve recognized their abundantly clear failures, and they have the next two months to become more of a 16-game team.
Dallas Mavericks: B+
Season record: 33-24
Luka Doncic used all 7 feet and 2 inches of Daniel Gafford’s wingspan on their first possession together, throwing a lob to the square, watching Gafford flush it down, and shaking his head with a smile while running back down the court, as though to say: I could get used to this. And he did, soon welcoming P.J. Washington to Dallas with another alley-oop:
If Doncic can fire lobs off drives, from the logo and from behind half court, it adds a new layer and efficiency to his precision from deep. This is what the Mavericks envisioned last summer when they drafted Dereck Lively II, a bouncy 7-foot rookie who has admirably worked through the growing pains of rim protection at the NBA level. But like most of the roster, he has dealt with injuries. The addition of Gafford, who has done a good job so far of covering the rim and getting back out to the 3-point line, gives the Mavericks some insurance as the 20-year-old Lively rounds into shape. When they’re both healthy, the Mavs could hypothetically have 48 minutes of rim protection. Pair that with Maxi Kleber’s spacing and switchability and the addition of Washington, and you’ve got yourself a versatile frontcourt that can space the floor vertically and horizontally. Gafford creates more easy looks at the rim and is also one of the best offensive rebounders in the NBA, giving one of the most prolific 3-point shooting teams a chance to gobble up its own misses. Kleber’s shooting ability lets Dallas get away with starting Josh Green and Derrick Jones Jr., plus defenders who don’t provide much functional space.
Even before the trades, Dallas seemed like a wild card thanks to a season with both promising moments and a litany of injuries. But now the Mavs have depth, versatility, and reinforcements around Doncic and Kyrie Irving. It’s early, but so far the returns on the Mavericks’ deadline have been wonderful.
Denver Nuggets: A+
Season record: 39-19
Over the summer, the collective bargaining agreement—the greatest threat to dynastic health known to humankind, outside of age—forced the Nuggets to part ways with Bruce Brown and Jeff Green, putting their depth in the hands of youngsters Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, and rookie Julian Strawther.
It’s a risk the Nuggets didn’t have a choice about, but they only have to look to the Warriors for a reminder that experience is its own self-detonator. The longevity of title teams rides on hitting on draft picks and enduring the growing pains of developing talent within the pressurized context of competing for a championship. The Nuggets did that last year with Braun. Now, it looks like they’re doing it with Watson, who is blossoming into a legitimate game changer on defense. You can see it in the highlight reels and the stats: Opponents shoot almost 14 percent worse when he’s near the rim, and his low foul rate, even though he has a block rate that’s in the 99th percentile among forwards, is illustrative of a player who doesn’t let his aggression spiral into folly too often. He still relies too much on athleticism to compensate for his mistakes, which makes him susceptible to savvier stars, but he has already put together impressive defensive showings against the likes of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Kevin Durant, among others.
Best-case scenario: In a distant, cap-locked future, Watson blossoms into a star and becomes a more perimeter-oriented replacement for Aaron Gordon. For now, though, as he continues to expand his range, he and Gordon could unlock postseason small-ball lineups that don’t surrender rim protection or rebounds. This was Michael Malone’s formula last year: ride out the regular season with DeAndre Jordan at center, and go small with Gordon when Nikola Jokic needs a rest.
Strawther isn’t quite as far along as Watson, but he’s got that unquantifiable nose-for-the-ball thing, and he’s been a dead-eye shooter when he gets more than 18 minutes per game. If he works his way back from his ankle sprain while Jamal Murray and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope nurse their injuries, he could have the opportunity to rep out some growth in the dog days of March.
Joker and Murray, for their part, averaged more than 39 minutes per game in the postseason last year. Jokic was featured in 10 of the Nuggets’ 11 most played lineups. That’s why I’m not too worried about the fact that Denver has the worst bench among playoff-likely teams: The same thing was true last year, and the team remedied it in the playoffs by staggering its stars. In the end, the Nuggets benefited from making guys like Brown work through the discomfort of playing without the starters through the regular season. Now, Watson and Braun are doing the same thing.
Detroit Pistons: F
Season record: 8-48
The Pistons are the kid who drops hundreds of dollars on textbooks before the semester and then drops the class before the first midterm. A 28-game losing streak would have been bad enough by itself. But the context makes it so much worse. The Pistons planned to be better than this. They made Monty Williams, who has never shepherded a rebuild, the then-highest-paid coach in NBA history, only to watch him shelve Jaden Ivey for Killian Hayes (who was just waived) in the name of turnover prevention. They also held on to vets Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks far too long, torpedoing the return they could get for them.
On the bright side, cleaning house at the wing spot has finally cleared the runway for Ivey, who’s averaging 19 points on 15.8 shots per game since February began. If he’s not developing into the ideal secondary playmaker next to Cade Cunningham, maybe Marcus Sasser (averaging 4.8 assists and 1.8 turnovers in February) or new acquisition Quentin Grimes could be. The trio has barely played alongside Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren, but that’s a lineup we should see more of for the rest of the season. Simone Fontecchio, at 28, doesn’t fit the rebuild timeline, but he’s a high-floor, decent-ceiling pickup whose shooting stroke could give his teammates the space to play around to find their games. At the very least, this season has clarified something the Pistons didn’t seem to understand at the beginning: When you’re this bad, sometimes the best way out is to lean in.
Golden State Warriors: B
Season record: 29-27
Jonathan Kuminga is finally buying in and etching in his place as a starter and finisher, averaging 15.3 points on 11 shots a game since the New Year. In that time, the Warriors, thanks to Kuminga’s explosiveness and gravity and the return of Draymond Green, have rediscovered the counterbalance between spacing and attacking the rim that has historically made them one of the best paint-scoring teams in the NBA. Klay Thompson’s fading star has given way to the Curry-Podziemski-Wiggins-Kuminga-Green lineup, a crunch-time revelation. Trayce Jackson-Davis is getting better by the game. Lester Quinones comes off like a measured Jordan Poole. Gary Payton II is healthy and is annoying the hell out of the likes of Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. Their record may not reflect it, but the Dubs have the NBA’s fourth-best net rating since Green’s return a month ago.
What do they have to thank for that? Well, according to Green, his suspension. Since his return, all the excess energy he can no longer release against other people has spilled out in every other direction—his podcast, the podium, his ambitious and potentially alienating recruiting attempts, his tongue wagging and verbal taunts.
It’s a high-wire act that the Warriors have no choice but to bank their future on. But on the whole, it’s … working? Green’s playmaking has greased the wheels of a Curry heater and unlocked the Andrew Wiggins–Kuminga pairing, which was unplayable before he came back. The Warriors and the NBA are better when the biggest heel in the league can rev up the antics in a manner that doesn’t disqualify him from the action.
Other questions are still coming: How does Chris Paul, whose way of solving the turnover issue is by slowing the game to an identity-sapping crawl, reintegrate himself into a team that turned things around by ratcheting up the pace? His shepherding of the second unit was once crucial for the young guys, but they’ve found their place without him, in a more Warriors-esque context. There’s room for him to throw lobs to Jackson-Davis, Payton, and Kuminga in the first three quarters, but I hope Steve Kerr resists the urge to jeopardize an effective closing structure for the sake of working Paul back in. In hindsight, I wonder whether the Paul trade will inspire the same self-denying regret Kerr speaks with when he references the Seven Seconds or Less Suns’ abandonment of their pace and space to trade for a past-his-prime Shaq. The Warriors have found their flow again. They need to keep following it where it takes them.
Houston Rockets: B+
Season record: 25-32
On a zoomed-out scale, the Rockets have run the play they called in the offseason to perfection, surrounding their abundance of young talent with enough structure to find out exactly who excels at what.
But now that the results are coming in, it might be time to assess the terrain and reconfigure a few things. Ime Udoka angrily suggested as much after a dispiriting loss to the Grizzlies heading into the All-Star break, hinting at lineup changes that could potentially relegate Jalen Green, once the crown jewel of Houston’s rebuild, to the bench.
Green’s early NBA years were steeped in the unstructured dysfunction of the short-lived Stephen Silas era, and it seems as if those chickens are coming home to roost. Alperen Sengun has never attracted more attention on the pick-and-roll, yet Green’s efficiency has stagnated thanks to his poor shot selection and tunnel vision. His 3-point shot has cratered, which is contributing to the Rockets’ spacing issues in the absence of Fred VanVleet. A sixth man role, despite his reticence, might be just what the doctor ordered—for Green and for the Rockets.
Cam Whitmore is shooting nearly 40 percent from beyond the arc, and the Rockets need more shooting in the starting lineup to make teams think twice about doubling Sengun, who is working through the growing pains of becoming a no. 1 option. The bench could use an infusion of Green’s creation ability, and he might find more success attacking second units.
This could merely be a blip in Green’s trajectory, a turn in the fulcrum toward eventual stardom. But if it’s not, the Rockets will need to look elsewhere. They wanted to field a competitive team this year, but they’re gonna need to get healthy and lucky to sniff the play-in. There’s currently a 14 percent chance that their first-round pick will fall into the top four, in which case they would keep it and convey only a second-round pick to the Thunder. It might be worth trying to goose those odds and go into the draft armed with that pick and the unprotected first they acquired from Brooklyn for James Harden.
Indiana Pacers: A-
Season record: 33-25
Sometimes I miss my pretty girlfriend who can’t guard anybody. But I guess, to Rick Carlisle’s point, she isn’t a wife. That’s why the Pacers bet big and committed themselves to Pascal Siakam. A sturdier defense is their best bet for a long-term relationship with the playoffs.
Despite making the biggest splash of the deadline over a month ago, the Pacers have had very little time to assess Siakam’s fit. He’s played just eight games with both Myles Turner and Tyrese Haliburton, whose hamstring injury had him on a minutes restriction through most of that time.
In one of their few healthy games together, the new-look Pacers achieved the dream of adding layers to their offense without losing the pace that was so crucial to their identity. Turner and Siakam turned transition mismatches into easy buckets, screening, spacing, and making plays for each other:
Buddy Hield’s departure also clears the way for former Rookie of the Year finalist Bennedict Mathurin, whose progress (or lack thereof) will ultimately dictate the Pacers’ ceiling. The second-year player has a bad case of sophomore slump, and he often looks disjointed in the Pacers’ frenzy of movement. He was a strong cutter in his rookie year, but coming off the bench makes him less likely to be a beneficiary of Haliburton’s game; however, the burden of creating without Haliburton will likely be positive for Mathurin’s long-term growth.
Indiana’s new starting lineup of Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Haliburton, Siakam, and Turner surrounds Indy’s star point guard with four strong defenders. But overall, the Pacers are just 8-8 since the Siakam acquisition, and with Turner shooting 33 percent from behind the arc, Nembhard’s shooting decline, and Siakam’s streakiness, there are worries about whether the Pacers will eventually pay for their decreased functional spacing in the postseason.
They also struggle with rebounding, and I’d like to see whether the positional inversion of throwing 240-pound rookie Jarace Walker out there with Siakam and Turner could remedy that—though it seems that Walker is a season away from cracking the rotation. Indiana might be a move away from championship contention. As of last year, it wasn’t even in the play-in picture. That’s progress at the speed of a Haliburton laser.
Los Angeles Clippers: A
Season record: 37-19
As I laid out earlier this season, James Harden has been the connective tissue the Paul George–Kawhi Leonard duo has lacked in its tenure. The Clippers are 34-12 since moving Russell Westbrook to the bench in mid-November, and they have the NBA’s second-best offense, second-best starting lineup, and second-best win percentage. They’ve led the NBA in 3-point percentage since November but aren’t overreliant on the long ball thanks to the quandaries that Leonard presents at the elbow. George peppers in triples, secondary playmaking, and closeout attacks. Ivica Zubac, Harden’s greatest beneficiary, has never had more point-blank looks, and he’s starting to work opponents on the short roll with his playmaking. The Clippers’ effort can wane, mostly owing to age and the regular-season slog, but overall, their perimeter defense is stingy, smart, physical, and versatile. They also have the luxury of bringing three valuable vets—Westbrook, Norman Powell, and Mason Plumlee—off the bench.
So why do they get only an A? Well, they’re almost complete. But the size they relinquished at the forward spot when they sent Nicolas Batum and Robert Covington to Philadelphia looms large. There’s a through line between the teams that have given them trouble, like the Cavaliers, Timberwolves, Pelicans, Lakers, and Celtics: physical front lines that outmuscle them on the boards and in the paint. The Clippers are a bottom-10 defensive rebounding team, and genuine two-big front lines are a lot for Zubac to handle alone. The Clippers aren’t really equipped to go big in return without decimating their spacing and being too slow on the perimeter. That’s why they usually go small to try to outshoot bigger opponents, but it doesn’t always work. Amir Coffey has admirably stepped in as a 3-and-D wing, but he can’t bruise with the best of them. On paper, rookie Kobe Brown is lab designed to solve this problem, but he’s still too raw. Los Angeles can’t get Marcus Morris in the buyout market because the team’s above the luxury tax apron—so you can take a big sigh of relief, Clippers fans who are traumatized by Ty Lue overusing him—but it might be worth taking a break-in-case-of-playoff-emergency flier on a cheaper stocky veteran type.
As tempting as it is to wax sensational about how the star-crossed nature of Harden’s playoff history and Leonard’s pattern of injuries will compound and combust a historically ill-fated franchise, I’m more inclined to believe that a potential collapse would be dependent on tactics and matchups, not something spiritual.
Los Angeles Lakers: C-
Season record: 31-28
You know what they say: Sixth time’s the charm. That’s the number of non-injury-induced starting lineup changes Darvin Ham has made over the course of this season. That’s almost once every 10 games, a calamitous development for a team that had planned to sail the winds of continuity. At different points this season, D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, Cam Reddish, and Taurean Prince—in other words, just about every rotation player but LeBron James and Anthony Davis—have been yanked from the starting lineup.
After the latest change, swapping Prince—relegated to his rightful place on the bench, and only passing the 25-minute mark when he’s making 3s—for Hachimura, the Lakers may have found something. They’re 6-1 when starting Davis, LeBron, Hachimura, Reaves, and Russell this season. Hachimura scored a career-high 36 points against the Jazz on February 14, and the new starting five is outscoring opponents by 5.8 points per 100 possessions.
Confusion, player movement, and inconsistency have all been hallmarks of the LeBron era in L.A.—and it hasn’t always been his fault. The Lakers’ 31-28 record this season is reflective of their 53 percent success rate in LeBron’s first five full seasons as a Laker, which have included a championship and two seasons they missed the playoffs entirely. That and a cryptic, well-timed, time-related emoji are why opponents felt comfortable enough (although Daryl Morey is famously comfortable with the uncomfortable) to ask the Lakers about his availability at the deadline.
On paper, it made sense for an aging star with only a few more shots at bolstering his legacy to part ways with a franchise that could use the opportunity to recoup some young assets. But this is the real world, and the Lakers were never going to trade LeBron James on the same weekend they immortalized Kobe Bryant, whose farewell tour infamously included a two-year, $48.5 million goodbye deal.
The in-season tournament showed us the Lakers at their best: A motivated, firing-on-all-cylinders LeBron combined with a menacing AD to anchor a well-considered defensive game plan. Ham has rightfully taken a lot of criticism this season, but he does handle this part of the job well.
They still don’t have enough shooting, and on most nights, starting Reaves and Russell creates serious defensive vulnerabilities in the loaded Western Conference. The addition of Spencer Dinwiddie, a long and strong combo guard, should help. But he’s a slightly below-average shooter and, ultimately, just another imperfect role player to integrate. The Lakers have guys who can shoot, create, or defend. Hachimura is the only player who comes close to being able to do all three, but he’s dealt with injuries and is a little too jumper happy to be a consistent threat.
In the end, the Lakers’ regular-season performance inspires doubt, but their pedigree, history, and top-end talent make it hard to count them out completely.
Memphis Grizzlies: B+
Season record: 20-37
The past two years should have featured the Grit and Grind 2.0 kiddos rounding into their primes. Instead, that time has been lost as a result of Ja Morant’s suspension and subsequent season-ending shoulder injury.
Memphis has been nimble in response, embarking on a single-season injury-induced semi-tank and trading David Roddy, Xavier Tillman, and Steven Adams for five second-round picks, a pick swap, Yuta Watanabe, and Lamar Stevens. By off-loading role players for draft picks, they’ve cut costs and retained some future flexibility, restocking an asset cupboard that was beginning to dry up.
The silver lining, aside from the unprecedented yet quintessentially Grizzly-esque rise of Vince Williams Jr. and GG Jackson? A rare opportunity for the Grizzlies to reimagine what a roster built around Morant, Desmond Bane, and Jaren Jackson Jr. should look like—with the added benefit of learning from their past mistakes, chief among them an overdependence on the draft to round out their supporting cast.
The Grizzlies will spend the rest of the season figuring out exactly what it is they should be. Can Jackson, despite his rebounding woes, play center full-time? Could a Santi Aldama–GGJ–JJJ frontcourt rotation offer enough of a spacing panacea for Morant’s explosive drives to offset those spacing issues? Right now, Williams is probably their best positional rebounder—at least until Brandon Clarke returns (potentially later this season). Beyond that, Bane’s ankle issues have opened up playing time for Ziaire Williams, a former top-10 pick whose jumper fell off a cliff after a promising rookie season. Can Ziaire reintegrate himself as a core piece, or will this be his final season in Memphis?
The rest of the season will be an experimental proving ground for Memphis, which is why they get a high grade here: It would have been too easy for the Grizzlies to scour the deadline market for reinforcements and force a play-in run. Instead, they’ve made the best of meager circumstances and are poised to enter next season healthy and reinvigorated.
Miami Heat: B+
Season record: 31-25
The Terry Rozier trade was a well-appraised stroke of genius, but Kyle Lowry—who was featured in six of Miami’s eight most played lineups with positive net ratings—and his knack for cohesion have been missed.
Miami has struggled to find balance all season—between offense and defense and between creators and benefactors. Rookie Jaime Jacquez Jr. has been a revelation, but he doesn’t provide functional space and likes to play in a style and location similar to that of Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.
But overall, Miami is still Miami. Erik Spoelstra is tinkering with lineups and figuring things out. Before Rozier’s knee sprain, the Heat had started to find success with a new starting lineup, moving Haywood Highsmith to the bench for Caleb Martin, who remains a crunch-time god. Before the break, they beat Milwaukee without Butler, Rozier, and Josh Richardson. Duncan Robinson has never been more dynamic. Tyler Herro, much like his team, remains obsessed with taking the most inefficient shots in basketball. The addition of Rozier, the mid-post exploits of Jaquez, and the jumper-happy offensive emergence of Adebayo all add to the midrange pile-on. It does give them multiple mismatch attackers, though, and seems to aid their postseason perseverance. Spo has a counterintuitive way of thinking about these things. I’m reminded of the time he stared Butler’s agent, Bernie Lee, dead in the eye and admonished him for not seeing the versatility upside in a lineup with no shooting.
Miami misses Max Strus and Gabe Vincent on defense. Any rotation featuring three of Herro, Robinson, Rozier, and Jaquez (though he’s sturdy for a rookie) will have its vulnerabilities exposed in the postseason, but Miami is still adept at constructing and executing situational zones.
What works for no one else somehow works for Miami. After two Finals appearances in four years, who are we to question it?
Milwaukee Bucks: B-
Season record: 37-21
Doc Rivers has a Reagan-esque talent for positioning himself as a savior. This, more than the obvious difficulties of taking over a team in the middle of the season, is what I took away from last month’s viral suggestion that he wouldn’t wish the opportunity (to coach two future Hall of Famers to a potential championship) on anyone. It’s also why I think he can’t quit coaching, and why he took the Clippers job a decade ago. “I thought, ‘What a great opportunity to turn around the most dysfunctional organization ever,’” Rivers told Kevin Arnovitz in 2018. One part of this profile, worth reading today, is particularly illuminating after Milwaukee fired Adrian Griffin for Rivers:
“Rivers’ analysis dovetails with a sentiment expressed by more than a few former NBA players, well-tenured coaches and executives,” writes Arnovitz. “He’s been overrated as a manager of relationships and egos, and quite underrated as a practitioner of X’s and O’s with a practical sensibility and a creative flair.”
I know, I know: the lack of playoff adjustments. But let’s solve one problem at a time. That, in fact, seems like the greatest tactical adjustment of Rivers’s early tenure with the Bucks. Mike Budenholzer was canned for his strict adherence to a mathematically sound but situationally exploitable defensive system. Griffin flipped that system on its head but overexposed Milwaukee’s weaknesses, taking Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez too far away from the rim and the glass. Rivers has found a middle ground, ushering in a program of versatile conservatism that coalesced in a statement win against the Nuggets before the break. It was simple, effective, and cognizant of his personnel’s strengths and weaknesses. Lopez and Malik Beasley switched pick-and-rolls to turn Nikola Jokic into a jump shooter, and new signee Patrick Beverley, now on his third Rivers-led team, hedged to help Damian Lillard and get the ball out of Jamal Murray’s hands.
The changes have stabilized Milwaukee’s vulnerabilities, but the problems are still the problems. The Bucks still have personnel issues that won’t be easily solved, and Khris Middleton’s injury struggles are hurting them on both ends.
There is no universe in which tasking Jae Crowder to track Duncan Robinson on screens with Lopez in a deep drop is a viable strategy. And frankly, there is an effort issue. The Bucks, who have Lillard and an aging core, are becoming Nuggets-esque on defense: If they accept where they’re overmatched, play on a string, take away the important stuff, and most importantly, give a shit, they can maintain the 112.8 defensive rating that’s made them the NBA’s fifth-best defense since Griffin got fired. After a dispiriting loss to the undermanned Grizzlies before the break, Rivers accused half the team of mentally being on vacation.
Did he have a point? Yes. But he’s better served by offering truth bombs in film sessions than easy, public-facing, self-exonerating quips.
If Milwaukee continues to struggle, will Rivers fall back into his old habits, slyly deflecting blame in a way that eventually grates on his teams, or will he evolve?
Minnesota Timberwolves: A+
Season record: 40-17
Self-discovery and self-refinement can be clashing bedfellows, but Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves, who have tapped into more of their potential this season than any other team, are striking an admirable balance.
Part of what’s made Edwards’s leap so tantalizing (aside from, you know, his leaps) is the sense that he’s still trying to find his ceiling, from the spin moves into midrange jumpers and odd-angle bankers to the using-my-left-hand-for-everything bit that’s illustrative of the blend of fearlessness, guile, and creativity that’s made him one of the NBA’s most charismatic young figures.
Leading up to the deadline, the Timberwolves had the NBA’s best defense, anchored by Rudy Gobert, and more victories against .500-and-above teams than anyone else, including wins against the Celtics, Thunder, Knicks, and Clippers.
But as they tightened things up, the cracks in their offensive consistency, crunch-time discipline, and overall maturity were becoming more glaring. You have to love that when Edwards sees Chet Holmgren at the rim, he wants to test him. But when he doesn’t get the call, he’s liable to go after, in his words, the “cheatin’ a-- refs” and incur a $40,000 fine rather than run back on defense. Edwards has 10 technical fouls on the season, top 10 in the NBA. He’ll still occasionally over-dribble, stagnate the offense, and shoot air balls. Although Edwards (22 years old) and Jaden McDaniels (23) are brilliant overall, they remind you often of how young they are. The Timberwolves are one of the worst crunch-time teams in the NBA.
All those forces converged in an early February implosion against the Magic, which hit its nadir when McDaniels intentionally fouled Paolo Banchero, wasting 19 seconds of good defense. More importantly, peep the look on Chris Finch’s face:
McDaniels has put the clamps on Kawhi Leonard this season—no small feat! But he’s also liable to put his hand in the cookie jar unnecessarily. Edwards and McDaniels are flanked by a high-voltage veteran frontcourt, with Karl-Anthony Towns and Gobert, and spicy role players like Kyle Anderson.
All of which is why the simple, low-cost maneuver of trading Shake Milton, Troy Brown Jr.—two negative performers—and a second-round pick for Monte Morris, who has never averaged more than one turnover per game in his entire career, could pay exponential dividends. Alongside Conley, he can be a necessary grounding counterbalance in the locker room while shepherding a second unit that craters offensively without its stars. The proof of concept was there in Morris’s impressive debut against the Clippers, where he was plus-10. And in five games, the Wolves have an astronomically low (and probably unsustainable) turnover rate of 2.8 percent when Morris is on the floor.
Minnesota’s continued growth will require internal, individual efforts from all involved, but it’s a testament to how far the team has come in a single season that the conversation can turn to whether it’s fine-tuned enough to compete for a championship.
New Orleans Pelicans: B
Season record: 34-24
Here’s the question I’m asking myself about the Pelicans. Could they be even better than the fifth seed if they weren’t in the bottom five in crunch time? Or are their execution lapses—the cause of multiple double-digit losses—symptomatic of larger structural issues?
The Pelicans’ starting lineup generates 16 extra points per 100 possessions in the first quarter but gives up 20 per 100 possessions in the third. Is that a failure of effort on the players’ part, or do they have a negative net rating because you simply can’t play Zion Williamson, Jonas Valanciunas, and CJ McCollum together for an extended time in a mismatch-obsessed league and not get picked apart?
The problem, I suspect, has a lot to do with halftime adjustments.
With attackers as diverse as Williamson, Brandon Ingram, McCollum, and Valanciunas, theoretically, there shouldn’t be a five-man unit in the NBA the Pelicans can’t leverage an advantage against. But they haven’t been able to create space so that they can get to work. Seventeen (second in the NBA) of Williamson’s 22 points per game are generated in the paint, and he’s a nonfactor outside it. To deter him, opponents will live with Valanciunas’s 34.4 percent accuracy on a low volume of 3s and let Herb Jones nail wide-open 3s at a 45.8 percent clip (although if he keeps it up, that might change). Ingram’s at his best inside the arc, where he’s delivering career highs in efficiency, including a scalding-hot 71 percent accuracy at the rim. But just 20 percent of his attempts are coming from there, according to Cleaning the Glass.
I think that the Ingram-Williamson pairing can work with the right guys around them. A lengthy midrange vixen who doesn’t need to live at the rim fits well next to Williamson, who can’t space the floor but can set rock-hard screens that guarantee open jumpers. In any event, building around a talent as perplexing and unique as Williamson demands a certain balance between simplicity and unorthodoxy. By straining for balance, Willie Green often leaves points on the board. Likely because of the defensive costs, Green has been reluctant to go small and surround Williamson with shooters. I’d love to see a lineup of Williamson, Ingram, Jones, Trey Murphy III, and Jordan Hawkins out there together, with Zion running the point and the Pelicans switching on defense. The more traditional small-ball lineup, which replaces Hawkins with McCollum, has gotten killed, but it hasn’t gotten enough run. Conversely, Valanciunas, Williamson, Ingram, and Jones should pummel opponents on the boards. But they’re ninth in second-chance points per 100 possessions and generate a league-average 44.9 percent of their points in the paint.
Against the Spurs in early February, with Jones injured, three guards—McCollum, Jose Alvarado, and Dyson Daniels—finished with Ingram and Williamson at the 5. The Pelicans got a rare crunch-time victory, courtesy of a transition game-winner from Williamson. But they also gave up a ton of offensive rebounds that the Spurs (also a bottom-five crunch-time offense) couldn’t take advantage of. It was part and parcel of their season: The Pelicans have interesting pieces, but there’s no perfect fit, and there’s always a hole.
New York Knicks: A+
Season record: 34-23
The Knicks are back, and I’ll keep this one short since I just wrote about them. There isn’t much new to say, despite praising the deadline additions of Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks. Due to a rash of injuries, the Knicks are very thin right now, but they have the NBA’s fifth-best net rating since the OG Anunoby trade, even though he is missing time due to an elbow injury. He should be back in the rotation with enough time to shake off the rust before the postseason. Same with Julius Randle. A healthy Knicks team has depth, defensive versatility, shooting, an All-NBA guard, and solid role players at every position. I still worry about their overdependence on Jalen Brunson’s creation come playoff time, but they should be dangerous.
Oklahoma City Thunder: A+
Season record: 40-17
One of the distinct pleasures of Oklahoma City’s rise this season has been watching the team bear witness to its own potential. Chet Holmgren, after smoothly drilling a game-tying jumper, released a primal roar, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, with his mouth agape, processed new information—about Holmgren, about his team.
Gilgeous-Alexander ices a game against the Magic, solving Orlando’s defense jumper by jumper and taking the wind out of Shaq’s sails after his jersey retirement, and you realize there isn’t an environment this man is afraid of.
Oklahoma has spent almost five years on a brazen, almost single-minded mission to stockpile assets, off-loading Russell Westbrook and Paul George for hauls that included Gilgeous-Alexander while absorbing many an unattractive contract along the way. This year’s trade deadline represented a break from that pattern. By trading for 33-year-old Gordon Hayward, who will almost surely replace 21-year-old Josh Giddey in the starting lineup, the Thunder front office made a decision with an eye on the present.
It wasn’t the kind of all-in move folks were clamoring for, but it was a subtle shift of direction, a sliver of belief that maybe the future is now. The Thunder also picked up Bismack Biyombo to shore up the boards.
Oklahoma City’s core is still green, and experience matters in the second season, but Gilgeous-Alexander is making the kind of giant, defense-eluding strides that make you wonder whether Oklahoma could break a cardinal playoff rule.
Does Holmgren, whose defensive impact has been Gobert-esque, really need another year under his belt for this team to make a deep postseason run? How many more jump passes does JDub really have to get out of his system? Is it time to ask Lu Dort to rein in the early-clock pull-ups or risk losing his role to burgeoning rookie Cason Wallace? Is the age of imagination over? Maybe they’re still a year away, but you have to love the pace they’re playing with.
Orlando Magic: A-
Season record: 32-26
Orlando has something special brewing with the duo of Paolo Banchero, who is flourishing as a star and a leader, and Franz Wagner, whose nuanced aggression serves as a complementary counterbalance. Jalen Suggs, Anthony Black, Cole Anthony, a healthy Jonathan Isaac, and Wendell Carter Jr. are helping forge the fulcrum of a defensive-minded identity, too. And Gary Harris and Joe Ingles are the only players older than 26.
So much of what ails them—turnovers, clogged-up creators, a bottom-10 offense—could be remedied with shooting, yet I’m glad they didn’t make any deadline deals to bolster their spacing. With the weakest schedule remaining in the NBA, the Magic are almost certain to at least be a play-in team this spring, which will allow the front office to find out who is built to rise under the bright lights and who flounders under pressure.
Getting into the Buddy Hield sweepstakes probably would have inflated their win total in the short term, but in the long term, I think this is a team that could use more young, top-end talent to grow beyond a second-round peak. And without a Thunder-esque stockpile of other teams’ draft assets, the best way for Orlando to shore up its young talent is through its draft picks, which requires not getting too good too fast.
Philadelphia 76ers: A-
Season record: 33-24
The Sixers have done about as well as a team could given the circumstances. Tyrese Maxey, the front-runner for Most Improved Player, helped metabolize the loss of James Harden while Joel Embiid, likely en route to his second MVP before his meniscus injury, took on an ungodly creative burden.
The Sixers’ deadline moves reflected their hope for their center’s potential return. All told, Marcus Morris, Danuel House Jr., Patrick Beverley, Furkan Korkmaz, and Jaden Springer went out, and Buddy Hield, Cam Payne, Kyle Lowry, and Darius Bazley came in.
With an eye toward the postseason, the Sixers traded defense for offense. But considering the attention Maxey is now commanding on the perimeter and Embiid’s sky-high usage rate before his injury, you can understand the impulse to relieve some of that pressure with Hield’s deadeye deep shooting. He can help them now, as they try to string wins together (the Sixers are 3-4 since his arrival, and Hield is averaging 18.1 points on 44 percent shooting beyond the arc), and in the future, when he can rip off Embiid’s shoulders for triples à la past dribble-handoff partners Seth Curry and J.J. Redick.
I’m not sure how I feel about trading away Springer, one of the Sixers’ only athletic young defenders, to a conference rival in Boston. But dumping Springer also gives them more flexibility this summer, when they can shift their priorities should this whole defense-for-offense gambit fall apart.
The Sixers will have the cap space to add a star this summer, but my biggest concern is who will be available. Paul George’s availability will likely come down to the Clippers’ postseason success and how much of a pay cut they ask him to take to keep their stars together. James Harden, hilariously, is also a free agent. If the Pacers don’t ever find a rhythm, maybe Pascal Siakam will want to reunite with Nick Nurse. OG Anunoby seems destined to stay a Knick. A lot could change between now and free agency, though, and 3-and-D guys with deep postseason experience like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown, Grayson Allen, and Caleb Martin could all be available.
Phoenix Suns: B+
Season record: 34-24
The Suns are what we expected them to be: oft-injured but explosive when healthy, with questionable defense and a few perimeter role players who’ve shone. In the past 21 games since Kevin Durant returned, with the Big Three finally healthy, the Suns are 15-8, with the 10th-best defense and the sixth-best offense.
That’s fine, but an offense that’s front-loaded with Durant, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker should be aiming for greatness. They should be blowing the tops off of buildings, setting league records on fire.
The biggest thing holding them back is an overreliance on movement-bereft basketball that leads to midrange jumpers, especially long ones. Booker’s playmaking progress is real, but he’s also their most reliable scorer, and their turnover issues feel endemic to a team without a true setup man. But there are other, easier-to-control factors. Over this healthy stretch, the Suns are generating a league-high 30.6 points on pull-ups per game and shooting a sizzling 47.8 percent—1.3 percentage points above the league-leading Thunder. Progress starts with turning more of those pull-up 2s into 3s and getting Jusuf Nurkic, Josh Okogie, and Drew Eubanks to crash the offensive glass to turn their misses into second-chance points. The Suns are near the bottom of the league in 3-pointers attempted per 100 possessions and offensive rebounding rate. The Royce O’Neale and David Roddy pickups at the deadline should help on those respective fronts and give the small lineups Frank Vogel has increasingly turned to in crunch time a little more size. Their frontcourt rotation remains a problem. Bol Bol is still getting chances, and it’s not really working. Nurkic is food in the pick-and-roll. The healthy Suns get wrecked on the glass.
Their stars should ratchet up their defensive intensity in the postseason. Durant’s rim protection could make their small lineups more tenable defensively. Beal is stronger than he looks, and Booker has been a plus defender for years. I remain dubious that it’ll be enough to survive the Luka-Kawhi-Jokic-SGA gauntlet of the Western Conference, but maybe there’s a way they can string it all together at the right time.
Portland Trail Blazers: D
Season record: 15-41
The game is finally slowing down for Scoot Henderson, largely because he’s slowing down for it, learning that the better part of playmaking rests on the same thing that Portland, after a quiet trade deadline, is doing: resisting the urge to make a move too quickly and letting the options develop instead.
The notion that Henderson could bridge the gap between two eras, fill in for Damian Lillard, and lead Portland’s vets to competitiveness—always a bit of a fantasy—was put to bed quickly after he struggled out of the gate and then got hurt. These days, though, his game is starting to come together, to the tune of a 36.8 percent clip from beyond the arc over his past 10 games. But if he keeps struggling to finish around the rim, a relative surprise considering his strength and aggression, his potential will be capped. The rest of this season for Henderson, especially after Shaedon Sharpe’s standout sophomore season was torpedoed by a core muscle injury, will be about developing chemistry with Deandre Ayton and Anfernee Simons, who also thrives with the ball in his hands.
With Ayton, Jerami Grant, Malcolm Brogdon, Matisse Thybulle, and Robert Williams III in tow, Portland has a slew of capable veterans alongside its young guys, including Kris Murray and Toumani Camara, all of whom are getting extended runs as Portland finishes out the season. The one silver lining to Henderson’s delayed development: They didn’t need to rush into dealing anyone. Their vets are under contract for at least another season, and there’s a good chance the trade value of Ayton and Grant could increase as they get closer to the ends of their gargantuan contracts.
Sacramento Kings: C
Season record: 33-23
The Kings’ issue is existential, not tactical. Their current .589 winning percentage is nearly identical to last year’s, but after a litany of firsts—from De’Aaron Fox’s first All-Star appearance to breaking a 16-season playoff drought—cracking .500 isn’t hitting the same in year two.
I wrote about the Kings in November, and I’ll keep it short because they’re still affected by the same problems: In hopes of improving internally by bolstering their defense, their breakneck offense has inexplicably sputtered. The Kings still lead the NBA in handoff frequency, but they score at a bottom-10 rate on them, compared to a top-10 rate last season. In the meantime, the rest of the NBA has caught a heater, flattening out the Kings’ once pronounced scoring advantage.
Their defense, despite their efforts, will likely peak at middling until they add reinforcements. The Kings need to play perfect defense to stop high-level offenses. One missed rotation and they’re woefully vulnerable. For a few possessions at a time, they can pull it off, but without the right personnel, that kind of consistency is hard to achieve.
They remind me of the young Raptors teams during the DeRozan-Lowry era. After the record-breaking feats of year one, they banked on tinkering with schemes and internal improvement but lost their verve, eventually getting swept by the Wizards in the 2014-15 playoffs. The Raptors’ growing pains eventually alchemized into multiple 50-win seasons and a conference finals berth. The championship year finally came after they traded everyone but Lowry and took a huge risk on a one-year rental of Kawhi Leonard. The Kings are in a similar spot. They’ve got some nice assets, but they came away from the deadline empty-handed largely because they probably can’t move the needle unless they seriously consider breaking up their core.
Maybe this will be an era defined by regaining respectability more than contending for championships. But if that ends up being the truth, I imagine we’ll be relitigating the Tyrese Haliburton trade, especially in the context of how he has raised not only the Pacers’ floor, but their ceiling, too.
San Antonio Spurs: B+
Season record: 11-47
The Spurs are the first bad team to get a good grade, mostly because Victor Wembanyama has been everything we thought he could be and more. And he’s been mostly healthy.
San Antonio’s amorphous, potential-filled future is starting to come into focus. The Spurs, in Phase 1 of their rebuild, have looked somewhere closer to Phase 1.3 in the past two months. Abandoning the Point Sochan experiment and starting Tre Jones will get most of the credit, but a different change to the starting lineup has played a factor too, and it gives us insight into what a fleshed-out team built around Wembanyama should look like.
On December 26, Gregg Popovich replaced rim-protecting center Zach Collins (who had a minus-11.6 net rating paired with Wembanyama, owing to the clogging of the paint) with Julian Champagnie, a stocky counterbalance to Wembanyama’s featherlight frame, saving him from the doomed task of taking on bruisers like Zion Williamson. The duo has combined for a 1.1 net rating, which may look insignificant at first blush, but is a monumental step forward for an 11-47 team.
Champagnie, a non-shooting journeyman, isn’t a long-term answer, but he’s an enticing prototype, a hard-to-move defender who can lead opponents’ shots into Wemby’s waiting arms and be a quick-moving, cutting beneficiary to Wembanyama’s burgeoning playmaking.
The Spurs still aren’t winning a lot of games, but their net rating has jumped from a Pistons-esque minus-12.1 to a bad but watchable minus-5.1. Which is important, since Wembanyama is appointment viewing. His teammates, finally realizing his catch radius is in the rafters, are throwing him lob after lob:
Since moving to center, Wemby has made excellent use of the space, delivering chart-splitting block numbers and anchoring a defense that has hovered around the league average since the lineup change. Perhaps most importantly, he’s shooting 35.5 percent from beyond the arc in the new year. The sooner the Spurs find the playmaking perimeter player of the future to get reps with Wemby, the better. It’s a big decision, though, and losing games now gives them more upside and options in the future.
Toronto Raptors: C-
Season record: 21-36
Despite the return of Jakob Poeltl, the Raptors have one of the NBA’s worst net ratings in February and a bottom-three defense, largely because they don’t get much bench production and they struggle to close games. The starters have outscored opponents by 13.3 points overall since Poeltl’s return, but they are getting destroyed to the tune of 27.8 points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter. The Raptors have committed more turnovers in crunch time than all but two other teams. Scottie Barnes, a potentially generational talent with an emotional streak, has been responsible for almost a third of them.
Barnes wants to do everything. He wants to be the point guard, the closing scorer, the stopper, the doubler. And he’s at his worst when he overstretches himself—doubling too far into the paint off a shooter, trying to thread a needle through an opening that’s just not quite there. These are mistakes, I sense, not born of selfishness as much as deep self-belief. And when they don’t pan out, he often pouts down the floor—or, worse, spreads his giant 7-foot-3 wingspan out in visible frustration at a teammate or referee.
Barnes is a first-time All-Star at 22, but he’s still a little green—on and off the court—to own the keys to the franchise, and both team and player will have to stomach the growing pains. In the fourth quarter of a blowout loss to the Spurs, he left the bench before the game ended and later admitted it was “a bad look.” Barnes is the team’s emotional force multiplier. His energy, for better or for worse, is obvious and expansive. He’s still learning that the way he externalizes his frustration has a teamwide impact.
RJ Barrett has been a hard-driving revelation, but Immanuel Quickley is still getting used to the attention and on-court workload of being a lead guard. His finishing at the rim has been abysmal with the Raptors, though an offseason in the weight room should remedy a lot of his issues. Bruce Brown, playing too far from the rim for my taste, gets worse by the dribble. Off-loading Dennis Schröder seven months after signing him is at once an admirable and concerning admission of an error. On the bright side, Gradey Dick found his stroke since the Siakam trade. Maybe Kelly Olynyk can grease the wheels, too.
Frankly, after off-loading Siakam and Anunoby, the Raptors need more talent, and they probably need to be patient enough to wait until the 2025 draft to get it. Unless they get a top-six pick in this year’s downer of a draft class, their first-rounder belongs to the Spurs. It’s time to learn lottery-ese, buddy.
Utah Jazz: B+
Season record: 27-31
Early in the season, the Jazz were good—too good for a team that’s not trying to win, which gave them a strangely amorphous quality despite the competence and teamwork drilled into them by Will Hardy. Now that Kelly Olynyk and Simone Fontecchio are gone, getting the Jazz even more draft picks, they’ve settled back into the predictable ugliness that generally accompanies development, losing enough games to all but torpedo their play-in chances.
The runway has been cleared for 20-year-old Keyonte George, whose finishing should catch up with his dazzling playmaking ability as he gradually works to add strength. Walker Kessler, who has made Utah better on both ends all season, was briefly inserted into the starting lineup again, but his frontcourt chemistry with John Collins, who simply hasn’t found his way in Utah, remains wretched. Rookie Taylor Hendricks has entered the rotation. Lauri Markkanen, meanwhile, has struggled within these new, geometrically cramped conditions.
As of now, the Jazz remain invested in stockpiling assets and undercutting any momentum to get off the ground floor. And you can’t really blame them. Beyond Markkanen, whose contract expires at the end of next season, they need more talent.
I wonder whether he’s Utah’s SGA—a cornerstone who’s willing to withstand the losing years to enjoy the spoils of what comes next—or whether he’ll eventually head elsewhere, either through a trade or his own volition.
Washington Wizards: F
Season record: 9-48
So far, the Wizards’ rebuild hasn’t been the Thunder-esque players-for-picks strip-down some imagined when Michael Winger and Will Dawkins took over this summer.
I will resist the urge to make a joke about Kyle Kuzma “building something” made of brick (a restraint he hasn’t shown much of this season) and try to understand why the Wizards honored his desire to stay with the franchise instead of trading him to Dallas. First, they re-signed him this offseason and seem to see some value in his desire to be in Washington right now. It also keeps CAA happy and flexes a managerial style that future players could find attractive. There’s also the fact that Kuzma will probably have more value as a trade asset down the line, when he’s owed less money.
Tyus Jones, despite potentially being a valuable pick for a contender, remained a Wizard as well, and it looks like Washington wants to re-sign him. Honestly, considering that they have 13 second-round picks incoming from other teams from now through 2030, plus a not-so-stable veteran presence, it’s understandable why they wouldn’t part with him for anything less than a first-rounder.
Either way, Washington’s version of the tank diaries would lean heavily on the Jordan Poole disasterpiece theater, which is the primary source of the Wizards’ failing grade here, even though I’m not that interested in engaging with it right now. I want the best for my no. 1 boy, and he might reclaim his rightful place as an electrifying secondary creator if he affably cedes lead guard duties to Deni Avdija, a burgeoning offensive threat with cagey playmaking abilities.
