The first couple months of this NBA season felt a bit off as a longtime fan. There was lots of consternation about ongoing TV ratings declines, concerns about the style of play, and a general lack of excitement for the season ahead.
Of course, the NBA has never been a league where myriad casual fans are locked in from game one of the season.
But starting on Christmas — despite the NFL games that afternoon — I got more fixated on the NBA this season. Yes, I think there's a few too many three-pointers in most games, but the style of play from night to night is still excellent and the talent level across the league is extraordinarily deep.
And since the All-Star Break now occurs a few weeks after each team's 41st regular season game, the Super Bowl bye week is the de-facto midpoint of the NBA season. Let's look over some players, teams, and legacies that have taken a boost or a hit since late October.
Stock up: Cleveland as a title contender
In my season preview, I called out the Cavs as a team likely to win 50 games, but less likely to make a leap into true playoff contention.
Now, 60+ wins seems exceedingly likely, despite a recent three-game slide, and the Cavs have more than held their own in the regular season against the teams they're likely to see from the second round of the playoffs on. Cleveland is a combined 6-2 against the Thunder, Celtics, Knicks, and Bucks.
A couple things have changed from last year that put the Cavs firmly in the contender group for me. First, they have a borderline unstoppable offense that's clearly better coached under Kenny Atkinson. Also, Evan Mobley has become a more versatile and aggressive player and has been crucial to defensive assignments. I still don't know if I could consider them favorites against Boston in a seven-game series, but I don't think they'll be manhandled in the playoffs like they were against the Knicks and Celtics, respectively, the past two years.
Stock down: Jimmy Butler's legacy
Jimmy Butler's career, at times, has felt like a refreshing throwback. He's a two-way player who became a star later than many five-time All-NBA players do. He played hard and saved his best performances for the playoffs, where he could put a team on his back the way only the LeBron/Curry/Durant tier of players seemed to be able to do consistently.
When he went to Miami and then led them to deep playoff runs, including two Finals, it felt like his past moodiness with Minnesota and Philly was out of sight, out of mind. "Heat Culture" was able to bring out the best in Jimmy, even if he saved his best output for April, May, and June.
In about six weeks, he's thrown away tons of goodwill in Miami. To me, he's still a Hall of Famer, but historians of the game will have no choice but to mention how toxic he could make a locker room. Will he end up getting his wish and a move to Phoenix? Probably. But that's not going to make the Suns anything close to a contender.
Stock up: Nikola Jokic possibly becoming a top-five center all-time
The top seven centers of all-time, in some order, are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Hakeem Olajuwon, Moses Malone, Shaquille O'Neal, and Nikola Jokic. All won at least one NBA MVP, at least one Finals MVP (FMVP wasn't given out until 1971, but we're retroactively giving Russell a handful here), and had at least six All-NBA selections.
Before this season, Jokic still would have still stuck out like a sore thumb on this list. He doesn't anymore. Regardless of whether he wins a fourth MVP this season or not, his ability to control the game offensively for more than half a decade puts him in the top tier of his position historically. And even among previously skeptical fans, it seems like his status has risen.
But he might also not be anywhere near finished — unless he suddenly calls it quits one year to return to the horses in Serbia. Jokic turns 30 in about three weeks, and every other player on the GOAT center list had at least one All-NBA season after age 31.
I think the Nuggets are probably too limited this season to compete for the West this season, but Jokic dragging them to a top three or four seed speaks volumes. We're seeing one of the best centers of all-time at his peak, and it's fine for old heads and back-to-the-basket lovers to admit that.
Stock down: Joel Embiid and the Sixers
I was quite skeptical of the Sixers before the season, but I would have never in a million years believed that they'd be out of the play-in spots after Game 44.
To make matters worse, Oklahoma City nabs Philadelphia's pick if it falls outside of the top six in the lottery. Right now, the Sixers have the eighth-worst record. With a bad homestand this week, the Sixers could well be tankers at the trade deadline after having title aspirations in July.
Then there's the health of Joel Embiid, which goes beyond the prospect of losing a top-10 pick in a much-anticipated NBA draft. Is Embiid even going to play 30 games this season? If he doesn't, he'll have missed about half of the games possible through his entire career since being drafted in 2014.
We've seen would-be franchise centers experience career-altering injuries in their 20s and early 30s plenty of times, and you could give Embiid credit for fighting through them enough to become an MVP and a Gold medalist. But the goal of "The Process" was never to just get to playoff second rounds — it was to compete for titles. And Philly seems further from that goal now than in any season since 2017.
For a lightning round, I'm also loving the upward trajectory of the Memphis Grizzlies and their super-athletic team led by Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson, Jr., how the Paul George-less Clippers have stayed afloat in the West with fantastic defense, and Cade Cunningham's rise to one of the league's best lead guards. On the downside, there's the rudderless Suns and the Pelicans still somehow not making a move and being one of the league's worst teams.
To me, these have been the most striking plot lines of the season so far. Over the next two-and-a-half months, we'll see if any of the disappointing bunch can turn it around and if the league's best will stay that way.
Leave a Comment