We’re more than two weeks into the NBA season and not everything has gone as predicted. The Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks, two fashionable picks to make noise in the Eastern Conference, stumbled at the start and are still trying to find their footing. The same can be said about the Grizzlies, Kings, Mavericks and Pelicans in the Western Conference. There are plenty of squads that are disappointed and might even have reason to panic.
Naturally, there are teams at the opposite end of the spectrum and have so far defied varying expectations (to the extent that some had any at all). These franchises have played well enough in the early going to wonder if they might be onto something, a group that coming into the season wasn’t so much under the radar as underestimated.
It’s hard to underestimate a team that has arguably the greatest player of all time, even at an advanced age, along with a guy in his prime who made first-team All-NBA in five straight seasons. But while having LeBron James and Luka Dončić definitely raise the Lakers floor, there weren’t a whole lot of people predicting that L.A. would have a high ceiling this season in the overloaded Western Conference. (Five of our eight staffers, including me, had them as a play-in team in our preseason predictions.)
Beyond those two and Austin Reaves, the roster looked pretty thin on paper. Further complicating matters was the fact that James, who will turn 41 in December, was unavailable to start the season while recovering from sciatica. LeBron still hasn’t played, and Luka missed four of the team’s first nine games due to a combination of finger and leg injuries, as well as rest.
All of that should have spelled doom for the Lakers. Instead, they’ve won five straight and are 7-2 — including 3-1 without Luka in the lineup. Remarkably, L.A. is fifth in offensive rating and second in eFG. Without LeBron and with Doncic intermittently available, Reaves (who missed the last two games with a groin injury) stepped up big-time. He had 51 points in a win at the Kings, 41 in home loss to the Blazers, and 28 including the game-winner against the Wolves in Los Angeles. That last game also introduced much of the world and Ant Edwards to the emergence of Jake LaRavia, who the Lakers grabbed during the offseason without much fanfare.
The Lakers beat the Spurs and Victor Wembanyama at home in a nail-biter on Wednesday night to extend their winning streak, but the Lakers most impressive outing to date might have been against the Blazers earlier this week. It was the second night of a back-to-back, on the road, and head coach JJ Redick decided to sit Dončić and Reaves against a plucky Portland team with a top-10 defensive rating. The Lakers won with a starting lineup that featured Rui Hachimura, Dalton Knecht, DeAndre Ayton, Marcus Smart and LaRavia. Nick Smith Jr, who is on a two-way contract, scored 25 points in 27 minutes. Considering how many key players have been in and out of the lineup for the Lakers, they’ll happily take this start.
“It’s become a thing in our routine, to approach the game the right way with some professionalism, and it’s starting to spread,” Ayton said after the Blazers win. “Guys deep in the bench showing up with 25 points. That’s legit. That’s big time, to be honest. No Luka. No LeBron. No Reaves. That’s something you just have to take a deep breath on and wonder if what we’re doing back here is really fundamentally sound.”
OK yeah they faceplanted in the aforementioned Lakers game. But this is the quietly doing work team that no one outside of the Pacific Northwest saw coming. The Blazers just handed the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder their first loss of the season on Wednesday night. Yes, the Thunder were missing three of their five starters from their championship season, but if we’re going to give OKC credit for being ridiculously deep (they are) when they win, then Portland gets a salute for picking them off on a night when the Thunder were forced to use that talented bench in a loss.
Last season the Blazers were among the group I thought should hard tank and instead they actually tried at the end of the season. Then they acquired Jrue Holiday coming off an is-he-cooked year with the Celtics, who salary dumped him for prudent cost cutting measures, which elicited a lot of what’s-happening dog-head-tilt questions from me. And so naturally the Blazers are 5-3 with Holiday looking like the two-way star he’s been his whole career (minus last season). Deni Avdija is scoring nearly eight points more per game than last season for a team that plays fast and is second in pace. The Blazers are eighth in defensive rating and led at that end by Toumani Camara who is everywhere all the time. No one looks at the schedule and thinks oh cool let’s get on a plane and fly to the corner of the NBA map to play a bunch of try-hards.
It’s a perfect Portland team.
Even after swiping Myles Turner out from under the Indiana Pacers (and their evidently ungrateful fans) this offseason, there wasn’t a lot of optimism about this Bucks team headed into the season. Damian Lillard‘s Achilles injury led to the controversial decision to waive and stretch his contract, adding $22.5 million per season over the next five years to the Bucks’ books for a guy who is now employed by Portland.
That move allowed them to pair Turner with Giannis Antetokounmpo, but it also made padding out the rest of the roster more difficult. The narrative all summer was when — rather than if — things would get bad enough that Giannis would finally ask out of Milwaukee, a storyline that Antetokounmpo didn’t exactly squash when he said he was “locked into” the Bucks for this season but reserved the right to change his mind in “six, seven months.” The whole thing felt like it was set up for another middle-of-the-pack finish in the Eastern Conference and a fourth straight first-round playoff exit before Giannis hit the highway and left Milwaukee in his rearview.
It could still go down that way, but the Bucks have to be happy with their 5-3 start considering no one outside of Milwaukee expected much from this bunch. The Bucks are eighth in offensive rating and Giannis is flying (32.3 points, 12.6 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game with a cartoonish 70.7 eFG and 39.2 PER).
The Bucks have also found production in unexpected places. Point guard threatened to be a real concern coming into the season, and the situation further deteriorated when Kevin Porter Jr, the early pick for the job, made it through nine minutes of the first game before a knee injury sidelined him. Into that void stepped Ryan Rollins, a guy who averaged 6.1 points and 1.9 assists in his first three NBA seasons. But since being installed as the starting point guard, Rollins is averaging 16.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 1.9 steals on a 62 true shooting percentage.
The Bucks couldn’t have scripted a better start. Win some games. Remain relevant. And above all show Giannis they can still compete.
It’s only seven games, but the Bulls have won six of them and sit atop the Eastern Conference standings. They were a fun watch toward the end of last season winning 15 of their final 20 games, but it’s safe to say no one expected this.
Josh Giddey has been the headliner, averaging nearly a triple double. Despite not having speedy guard Coby White who remains out with a calf strain, the Bulls have still attacked at every opportunity. They lead the league in drives and points in transition per game. They’re second in points in the paint per game and third in 3-point percentage. That’s the kind of modern shot diet you love to see. It all works out to them being eighth in offensive rating and points per game.
The Bulls have racked up big wins over Eastern Conference competition that includes the Hawks, Magic, Knicks and, most recently, the equally surprising Sixers. That last one didn’t look like it was going to happen. The Bulls were down 24 at home on Tuesday night and appeared headed for a second straight loss. Instead they mounted a massive fourth-quarter comeback when Giddey drove the lane and found Nikola Vucevic in the corner for the game winner.
That was their first lead of the game. It should be noted that Giddey posted triple-doubles in each of his last two outings, becoming the first Bulls player to do so in back-to-back games since Michael Jordan in 1988. When you’re in that kind of company and you’re also perched atop the conference standings things are going pretty well.
5. Philadelphia 76ers
They’re not without problems. They blew a big lead on the road in a loss at Chicago this week and followed that up with a loss at Cleveland the next night. That happens in the NBA, but they’ve still won five of their eight games. That beats what they went through last year when they won just 24 games all season and injuries to Joel Embiid and Paul George limited them to a combined 60 appearances. That prompted a late-season tank job that allowed them to draft VJ Edgecombe and salvage something positive from an otherwise brutal year.
With George yet to play this season and Embiid on a minutes restriction, the Sixers have turned to an allotment of fast young guards and wings that includes Tyrese Maxey, Quentin Grimes, Kelly Oubre and Edgecome. Their top four three-man combinations all include some variation of those guys.
Maxey has been the driving force. He scored the most points in the first seven games of a season in franchise history and leads the league in points per game at 33.5
The start represents a vast improvement.
Last season was a low point for a Heat franchise that fancies itself as one of the best organizations in the league. The Jimmy Butler drama dragged on longer than anyone wanted, and then Miami got kicked while it was down in a four-game sweep by the Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs. Their two best players, Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo, were terrible in that series. And then, roughly a month before the new season began, Herro had surgery on his ankle. He still hasn’t played and is expected to be out until at least mid-November.
That didn’t exactly inspire confidence, even though they added Norm Powell coming off a career season with the Clippers, and even though the Heat are in the watered down Eastern Conference. In our preseason predictions, no one on our staff had Miami any higher than the play-in.
Maybe that’s where they ultimately end up, but despite not having Herro the Heat have been hard to slow down. They’re eighth in net rating and fourth in points per game. Early in the season Adebayo marveled at their new offensive approach where head coach Erik Spoelstra doesn’t call many plays, instead trusting his players to read and react to the defense in real time and keep the ball moving. It’s a fast, freewheeling style that has the Heat first in pace. (Adebayo left Wednesday’s game at Denver with a foot injury after playing just eight minutes and did not return. That should have everyone in Miami holding their collective breath.)
In the new system, Adebayo and Powell are averaging a combined 43 points, while Jamie Jacquez Jr has become a key contributor (17.4 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists in 29 min per game) after regressing in his sophomore season. Just when it looks like the Heat might have gone dry, Spoelstra finds a way to wring more out of the rag.