With the holidays just around the corner, it’s as good a time as any to take stock of what we’ve witnessed through the first few months of NBA action. With plenty of storylines to choose from, we try to narrow down the list to the 5 most burning questions which will affect the 2nd half of the season below.
1. Are the Timberwolves for real?
After limping into the playoffs in 2022-23, and making no major changes to their roster in the offseason, there was little reason to believe that the T-Wolves would be any better than their 42-40 record a season prior.
Fast forward to today, and they’re tied with the Boston Celtics for the best record in the NBA at 21-6. Their 113.7 points per game is nothing to write home about, currently ranking 17th in the league in that regard, but their stifling defense is what’s allowed them to pile up wins in the early going.
Minnesota is allowing an NBA best 106.9 points per game to opponents, as the dynamic duo of Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert seem to have finally worked out the kinks to co-exist in the front court. No small feat given the fact that just a season ago, more than a few media outlets were ready to crown the Utah-Minnesota Gobert swap amongst the worst deals in professional sports history.
But perhaps the biggest reason for the T-Wolves ascension has been the play of Anthony Edwards. Still only 22 years old, Edwards is currently averaging 24.8pts/5.1ast/5.5reb/1.4stl per contest. His assists per night, points, free throw percentage, and 3pt% are all sitting at career high marks, and yet it still feels like there’s another level for him to unlock with his skillset.
With a dominating 12-1 record at the Target Center, and a defensive unit amongst the league’s best, it’s hard to see Minnesota falling further than 4th or 5th in the conference, even if they were to struggle in the 2nd half of the season. But, as always, all that means nothing if they fail to advance past the 1st round in the playoffs.
With only one season in franchise history where the club has made any kind of a deep playoff run under their belts, Edwards and Co. will be plenty motivated to secure a top seed in the West and use that home court advantage effectively to exercise some demons of past playoff failures next spring.
2. Will Draymond sink the Warriors season?
Draymond Green is both the motor and the anchor of the Warriors roster. His contributions on defense, essentially acting like a quarterback in his own end, and his ability to get Steph open looks on offense are second to none on the team.
But his propensity to take dumb fouls (at best) or remove himself from the game entirely have hurt the Warriors time and time again in recent years. The dichotomy between his contributions and his negative effects on the team is perhaps one of the most fascinating subplots in recent sports memory.
Unfortunately these are no longer the 73 win Warriors of years gone by. Golden State is currently 14-14 and fighting tooth and nail to remain in the play-in tournament hunt out west. With Draymond suspended indefinitely, and no timeline for his return currently available, even more pressure will be heaped onto 35 year old Stephen Curry’s shoulders to keep the team afloat.
When Draymond will return, and how effective he’ll be when he suits up again, remain to be seen. For years there have been detractors who were happy to prematurely pour dirt on the Warriors and write them off, only for the team to prove them wrong time and again.
But this one feels different. Golden State isn’t so much getting passed by the competition, but rather imploding from within. Even if the Dubs are able to make the postseason, they’re unlikely to instil much fear in their opponents matchup wise. While anything is possible, this one feels like the beginning of the end out west.
3. Can the Clippers keep it together?
Tell us if you’ve heard this one before: “wow the Clippers are looking good, think this is their year?”
This is then usually followed by an excruciating playoff defeat that could only be engineered by LA in typical Clippers fashion. Clips fans can be excused for tempering their excitement until they see how things play out, but one thing can’t be denied at the moment: LA is playing a winning brand of basketball.
Now, all will be for naught if the team stumbles in the postseason. And even getting there will be a journey in and of itself. Kawhi is looking like the old version fans hoped they were getting following the 2019 championship. Paul George is playing some of the best all-round basketball of his career. And even the much discussed James Harden experiment seems to be working out.
But that all comes with the caveat “for now”.
Fans have seen how quickly Kawhi can go from All-NBA to street clothes for long stretches of time in the past. And one need look only as far as his latest stint in Philadelphia to see how Harden’s mercurial nature can swing a team’s season in the wrong direction.
After being named to 10 straight All-Star games, Harden was left off the roster in 2023. Per Ramona Shelburne, Harden was “pouting” for several days, and “By the time Harden sent word that he would accept the invitation,” Shelburne wrote, “Silver had moved on, naming Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam as the replacement for an injured Durant.”
From there, the Sixers season went into a nosedive, and the ensuing Harden vs. Morey drama spilled into the offseason. For now, everything is humming along as the 6’5” guard has taken to his new role to the tune of a 17.4pts/7.7ast/4.8reb statline, while committing the fewest turnovers (2.3 per game) of his career since becoming a starter.
But this is a situation worth monitoring, as the “on paper” version of the Clippers is one that can make some noise in the Western Conference come playoff time. But getting there in one piece is easier said than done.
4. The Embiid & Maxey Show
Speaking of the Sixers, there were more than a few pundits who predicted Philadelphia would take a significant step backwards after losing Harden, and failing to bring in any high profile free agents this summer.
Instead, the team currently sports a 20-8 record, and is amongst the Eastern Conference’s elite as we near the midway point. Embiid is having another MVP-like season scoring a career high 35pts per night, to go along with 11.7 boards, 2 blocks, and a career high 6 assists per contest.
He’s currently riding a 13 game 30-10 streak, which is the longest streak since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did it for 16 straight games back in 1971-72. He’s also the first player in league history to record 850pts/250reb/150ast through his first 25 games. Simply put, the big man is playing out of his mind right now.
But his efforts would likely be chalked up to “empty stats” if it weren’t for the breakout campaign of 23 year old Tyrese Maxey. Maxey is posting career highs in virtually every statistical category there is, including points (26.4), blocks (0.5), assists (6.8), steals (0.8), rebounds (3.9), free throw percentage (.903).
His emergence as a top flight point guard in the NBA has allowed new head coach Nick Nurse to get creative with his rotations, and throw different looks at opponents compared to last year’s ball dominant duo of Harden & Embiid.
The accumulation of “quantity over quality” in terms of contracts they’ve taken on since dealing Harden, will also allow Philadelphia to be one of the more aggressive teams at the NBA trade deadline. Daryl Morey has also gone on to state that the Sixers can create more than $55M in cap space next offseason by retooling the roster around his new one-two punch of Embiid and Maxey.
So for all those who were hoping that the Harden vs. Morey scorched earth saga would be the downfall of the 76ers, it seems for now as if it’s had the exact opposite effect.
5. All eyes on the bottom dwellers of the East
The Pistons (2-26), Raptors (11-17), and Bulls (13-17) all have their work cut out for them if they plan on making anything resembling a deep playoff run next spring. And while NBA fans have heard rumblings that all three franchises could be looking to make “big moves” at the trade deadline for several years now, it feels as though we’ve reached a breaking point for these three franchises.
Detroit is a complete mess. They’re on the cusp of tying the NBA record for most consecutive losses at 26 in a row, the fanbase is starting “sell the team” chants at home games, and they’ve got a fundamentally flawed roster despite regularly picking at the top of the draft for the last few seasons.
All in all, things look grim in the Motor City.
After signing Monty Williams to a lucrative multi-year deal, few could have predicted how quickly things could have gone south. In normal circumstances, one would assume that coveted pieces such as Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, and Ausar Thompson would be deemed completely untouchable. But it’s hard to rule anything out at this point.
GM Troy Weaver is going to have a career defining trade deadline coming up. One of three options seems plausible at this point: He does nothing (and loses his job), he makes a series of deals in attempt to save his job, but still loses it, or he somehow makes enough shrewd manoeuvres to sell ownership and the fanbase that 2024-25 will be a different story.
Whatever the outcome, wholesale change is coming to Michigan in short order. Whether it’s to the front office, roster, or both is all that’s up for debate at this point.
Meanwhile, Chicago and Toronto find themselves in eerily similar circumstances. Neither roster is good enough to make a run at a title in the East. But neither is currently bad enough to completely bottom out for a top lottery pick either.
They’re both stuck in neutral and have been for a while now.
DeMar DeRozan, Zach Lavine, and even Lonzo Ball are names that pop up on the blogosphere as trade bait from time to time. But like death and taxes, the trade deadline comes and goes, and there’s no movement on the Bulls front.
Similarly in Toronto, OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, and Gary Trent Jr. are the Canadian version of the Bulls trio. Often discussed, rarely actually moved.
Unfortunately Masai Ujiri is quickly running out of patience and good will from the fanbase following the 2019 championship. While Bulls GM Marc Eversley has felt his seat getting progressively hotter and hotter as his team continues to flirt with a .500 record, but being no better than a play-in tournament candidate at best.
Much like Detroit, this seems like the year where major change could finally come for both franchises. While all six players may not ultimately be dealt, at a minimum there should be some roster movement ahead of the trade deadline this year for both clubs.
If not, we could see some changes happening to the front office side of things in Toronto and the Windy City.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Erik Drost. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.