Sunny Summer Optimism Season

The NBA draft and (way too quick) subsequent beginning to the official offseason is behind us, and we can now look forward to a couple months of optimism for every fanbase. Will their best-but-injury-plagued player play a full season? Will that second year player show progress towards an imminent all-star appearance? Will the youth on the team actually benefit from that veteran presence?

The offseason is long for deeper analysis, but right now, let’s stay at the 4,000 foot view and see what every team has to be excited about. Here are some important factors to consider:

1. Has your team recently achieved significant playoff success (either gone farther than you thought, or they won it all)?

2. Do you have a franchise icon superstar that is committed to the franchise and is healthy (sorry, Boston and Indiana)?

3. How good can they be this season?

4. Are there young players to be legitimately excited about (Bonus points if the player has actually played well in the NBA and has a pathway to improvement, e.g. Risacher in Atlanta)?

The Oklahoma City Thunder and the Denver Nuggets have the luxury of checking every one of the four boxes above. They are two of the three most recent champions, rely on trustworthy superstars, are likely to be the best two teams in the NBA this season, and have youth that are helping the team along. I do think that if you swapped Jokic + Braun for Shai + Hartenstein, the Thunder would win 80 or so games in the regular season. But this is a team-based exercise, not a place to debate Shai vs Jokic!

Here we have the Houston Rockets, Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Pistons, and Dallas Mavericks. To review the past few weeks, these are the rotation changes made by each of these teams:

• The Rockets traded Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks for Kevin Durant.

• The Magic traded Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Cole Anthony from last year’s rotation for Desmond Bane.

• The Hawks traded Clint Capela and Terence Mann for Kristaps Porzingis and Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

• The Pistons traded Dennis Schroder, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Malik Beasley for Jaden Ivey (from injury), Duncan Robinson, and Caris LeVert.

• The Mavericks traded no one for Cooper Flagg.

  • NOTE: it’s totally possible that a rookie doesn’t meet the expectations laid out for him, but the Mavericks fans are justifiably stoked for Flagg. This is a subjective metric, anyways.

Now, if any of these teams’ new acquisitions get hurt or play bad starting out the season, then the anticipation of a leap will quickly dissipate. That’s the difference between this group and the first: that the first can trust their team to turn things around if the start gets bumpy. The teams in Tier 2 have never truly existed before (not in some deep, existential way, but just because their rosters are tangibly different from last year).

The New York Knicks fired their coach after their best playoff run in 25 years, the Minnesota Timberwolves tried to trade the farm for Kevin Durant, and the Cleveland Cavaliers couldn’t re-sign their invaluable and improbable 6th man but are trying to replace him with Lonzo Ball.

But, at the same time, all of these teams are better than the teams in tier 2! They’re just on the other side of Mount Realism, where they know how hard it is to take that next step.

Tell me if you’ve heard this before: The Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs probably have the best two young-ish (I’m going to say under 27 just for the sake of my point, but I know that Luka’s not that young) players in the NBA. Now, the two franchises have some funkiness going on (What’s going on with LeBron? And how many guards who aren’t good shooters will they have on the Spurs now?), but even with that, they’re in an envious long-term position.

Led by five of the best ten players of the last decade, the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Clippers, and Golden State Warriors are trying to keep up with the young bucks (no pun intended) of the league. Many will cry foul over the second apron ruining it for these teams, but this is the natural process of over-investing in a single team in order to win as much in the short term. In the case of the Bucks and Warriors, it was totally worth it. For the Clippers, they’re still trying to have their first Ben Franklin moment by catching lightning in a bottle.

Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics and Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers are out for the entire next season with torn Achilles tendons. Maybe the other guys will show something new to build off of in 2026-27!

Two of these teams, the Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Pelicans, is not like the others—the Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards, and Brooklyn Nets, but all needing to keep trusting their front office decision makers (because, what other choice do they have?). All of these teams are trading away decent players in order to establish a young cornerstone (or to prop up their young-ish cornerstones, in the Pelicans and Grizzlies cases). It’s especially difficult for those teams that were good not too long ago… nope! Stay positive! They’re smart!

The Portland Trail Blazers were 23-18 in their second half of the season last year, after going 13-28 in the first half. The Charlotte Hornets only got 74 combined games from Brandon Miller and LaMelo Ball. Josh Giddey of the Chicago Bulls averaged 19/9/7 on 50/44/80 shooting over his last 31 games (coinciding with the LaVine trade). The Philadelphia 76ers have VJ Edgecombe, the shoulda-been ROTY from last year in Jared McCain, and the always-beloved Tyrese Maxey!!! And the Toronto Raptors have a bunch of “good” basketball players. So much to be hopeful for!

They’re all going to be happy with how this year goes. Definitely

The Sacramento Kings and the Phoenix Suns are going to need to combine once again to become the SunKings.

Booker, Sabonis, LaVine, Green, Brooks, DeRozan? What could go wrong?

At least the Suns have their all-time franchise leading scorer locked up for the long term!

Oh yeah, and then there’s the Miami Heat.