VERSUS: Similar Teams with Similar Goals

Opening night! Have fun everyone!

Both unforeseen circumstances (e.g. injuries) and self-inflicted wounds (e.g. trading Luka Doncic for 40 cents on the dollar) can impact a team’s short-term and long-term future, and one would think that in a league of only thirty teams, it would create thirty very different circumstances. But, right now in the game of basketball, there seems to be several parallel-ish lives playing out in the league.

What are the last two Eastern Conference champions going to do with their respective superstar players out with the same injuries? Will the two non-Wemby Texan teams be able to survive without basically any reliable guard play? Why not build your team around players in their late thirties? And finally, how did the Suns and Kings get here?

Let’s dive in.

Main connection: Superstar darling tore their achilles in the 2025 playoffs.

Other shared qualities: They’re trying to put together a squad of unproven centers to replace their long-time, proven stretch big (in Boston’s case, stretch bigs*).

Some differences: The Celtics tore down last year’s team by trading away Jrue Holiday in addition to Porzingis (and letting Horford walk). In a transparent—and justified—effort to get below the tax for this rebuilding year, they decided that the outer core of their championship team no longer served its purpose in the City of Beans and Tea Parties. The Pacers, on the other hand, have retained their celebrated depth in the backcourt and on the wings. Sure, Isaiah Jackson, Jay Huff and James Wiseman is not exactly a murderer’s front court, but the majority of last year’s rotation is still going to be playing in Indianapolis this season.

Who will fare better: As a half-dozen of you probably remember, I am a Pacers believer. I believe that they have the pieces in place to play a more traditional style without Haliburton and be better than the Celtics. Andrew Nembhard may get more All-Star buzz than Derrick White. The Celtics have 6 players who have played real NBA minutes before, and I can see it being a very tough season for them to get wins, no matter how many threes they shoot.

Main connection: They are planning on playing power forwards as shooting guards and small forwards for basically the whole season. In other words, they are testing the limits of the recent trend away from small ball.

Other shared qualities: They are in Texas, they have a very important, championship-pedigree-endowed point guard who is injured for a while (FVV and Kyrie), and they want their superstar young kid (Thompson and Flagg) to be the best young player in Texas, glaring at San Antonio. Also, Jason Kidd and Ime Udoka are defense-first coaches who want to suffocate the life out of your offense.

Some differences: The Mavericks have a lot of veterans on their team, but are relying (pretty dramatically) on a rookie to come in and do non-rookie things right away. Also, the Mavericks had the whole offseason to figure out how to deal with Kyrie not being around for a while, while the Rockets ended up surprised in late September by FVV’s torn ACL.

Who will fare better: I feel like I’m in the significant minority with this, but these teams are pretty even for me. The Rockets losing VanVleet is them losing their adult in the room and on the court. For all of you saying, “they just traded for the best pure scoring forward of all time!?!?!”, I will tell you that Durant wasn’t up to the task of initiating significant offense last year on the Suns. Perhaps that was the Valley’s fault, but he may just be more of a play-finisher these days (and a great one at that).

My heart says that Dallas will be better (like by one seed), because they feel like a cleaner-fitting team to me than an FVV-less Rockets team. But my head says Rockets, because they have the benefit of progress from a bunch of young guys. LISTEN TO YOUR HEART. MAVS.

NOTE: For those talking about Reed Sheppard easily filling in FVV’s shoes, I will happily be surprised if that’s true. Reed couldn’t get minutes over Aaron Holiday last season, and I think that Ime really wants to maintain his defensive identity. He’ll get his chances, but Reed would have to be pretty generational to go from basically no playing time to having an FVV-level impact.

Main connection: If you search geriatric on Wikipedia, you might see a picture of their rotations.

Other shared qualities: Other than both being in California and having owners who were the primary targets of the second apron section of the CBA, not a ton.

Some differences: The Warriors play-style is completely different from that of a James Harden/Kawhi Aspiration Leonard offense. Also, one of these teams has Bradley Beal. Ouch.

Who will fare better: I think that the talent on the Clippers (at least with a healthy Kawhi) is clearly better than the Warriors on-paper, but the Warriors are always among the most cohesive units in the league. At the end of the day, I trust that Steve Kerr’s tried-and-true system (much to future Phoenix Sun Jonathan Kuminga’s chagrin) will work better for wins than Ty Lue who is asked to find a new identity every 6-12 months.

Main connection: They are sad teams that ask, “how in the world did we get here?”

Other shared qualities: Neither team has a clear path to a productive tear-down, and they both have too many guards. But there isn’t a ton on the court that is similar. They are just destined to be connected at the hip as the SunKings.

Some differences: The Suns have leaned into rostering plenty of semi-intriguing young guys, while the Kings are lacking in that department (besides Murray, Ellis, and Clifford). On the other end of long-term planning, the Kings have a lot more picks in the cupboard if they wanted to do something crazy.

Who will fare better: I think that the Kings’ variance for this season is pretty small, living around 34-38 wins. Sabonis and DeMar are the hardest fit to wrap one’s head around, even if the German Jordan is coming in to try and save the day. As for the Suns, I think that their variance is something like 26-42 wins. Perhaps there’s a world in which Jordan Ott can bring over a lot of his Cavs learnings to help get guards to coexist, help role players cut, and shoot a ton of threes. So I think that while 42 wins is a 1% chance scenario for the Suns, I will take them as it’s all I have left. Hope.