Do I Believe These Early NBA Trends?
I don't know... do YOU?
What’s a God to an NBA fan who doesn’t believe in anything?
We’ve crossed the one-month threshold, friends. The NBA season has found its rhythm. You can nitpick goings-on around the league if you want but I’m having a damn good time.
Last night I sprinted to Wells Fargo Center to watch Jared McCain score 30 points and I’m pretty sure he’s going to save everyone in this city from collectively drowning themselves in the Schuylkill.
Anyway, here are five early trends and whether or not I believe them.
Tyrese Haliburton Can’t Shoot
Not buying this one at all.
This reminds me of when Darius Garland broke his jaw last year and missed a bunch of time and then came back and struggled to be an All-Star level player and everyone put on their thinking caps and said “Hmm is Darius Garland bad now?” No, you rube he broke his damn jaw!
Anyway, the Haliburton situation reminds me of that because Haliburton was a 40% three-point shooter for five straight years and then tanked in the second half last season and can’t buy a basket this year (he’s shooting well under 30% from 3PT) but it’s pretty clearly injury-related.
Back injuries linger so there’s no reason for the Pacers to force him out there every night and if you came here for hot takes… I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world to load-manage Haliburton pretty considerably this year and sit him until he’s 100%.
I know Indiana made the Eastern Conference Finals last season so this year was perceived to be a continuation of that exciting run and yet 2024-25 feels pretty low-stakes for the team. Myles Turner, Pascal Siakam, Haliburton are all under contract for years and young guys like Mathurin, Ben Sheppard and Jarace Walker are under team control for basically as long as the Pacers want. No need to fuck up your franchise point guard’s back over a season that looks like it belongs to Boston again anyway.
I digress. No, Tyrese Haliburton’s shot isn’t forever broken and I hope his back isn’t either.
The Lakers Offense is High-Octane
Los Angeles is fourth in offensive rating (117.4) and frankly, I believe it friends. JJ Redick has the goods. I thought the cute sets he ran in the first few games would eventually be dissected by opposing coaches and he’d be figured out quickly — but I don’t think that’s the case anymore. He’s adapting, like the villain in a sci-fi movie where you shoot one of its arms off and it regrows two arms to replace it.
And why shouldn’t this unit be elite? We’ve gotten used to saying “Well, AD and LeBron are amazing, but outside of them…” but there doesn’t need to be that much outside of them. When you have two players as good as Bron and AD, fitting pieces around them shouldn’t be puzzling. Austin Reaves, D-Lo, Rui don’t need to be world-beaters for this offense to function.
Dalton Knecht was obviously an NBA player so him falling to 17th in the draft was malpractice by a lot of teams! You know what the problem is? The big problem? It’s a foundational problem, systematic really. The biggest problem is that NBA teams don’t respect the Big Sky. Knecht spent two years at Northern Colorado before he transferred to Tennessee and NBA teams have zero respect for the grind of a Big Sky conference schedule.
Anthony Davis becoming the best scorer in the NBA helps a bit too, and I think that’s also a product of what Redick is instilling in this group.
The Houston Rockets Are Contenders This Year
If your name is Cameron Cortinas, stop reading NOW.
Houston is 12-5, third in the West, but I’m not buying this in 2024-25. In 2026, I might! 2027? Why not!
The path to contention for Houston is paved with gold brighter than Paul Wall’s grills and I think this team starts challenging the upper echelon of the West pretty soon — but like next year soon.
The good: Alperen Sengun can carry an offense, Tari Eason might be Draymond Green and Amen Thompson with a consistent three-pointer is a Hall of Famer.
Depth is a strength of this team — Ime Udoka plays like a dozen guys a game. I think what Houston really needs, though is one guy who combines the strengths of Jabari Smith, Cam Whitmore and Fred VanVleet.
That might be Jayson Tatum, actually, and I don’t think he’s available at the moment but you get my point.
Houston’s weird; rarely is number one scoring option the last thing a team needs to achieve Finals-caliber status but that’s the case with the Rockets. I like Jalen Green (I wrote a very nice piece about him last month, in fact) but we can stop trying to force him as the go-to scorer for this team, now.
Currently 12th in offensive rating, it’s not as though this team can’t score but I do think the modern postseason requires a bucket-getter who guarantees you 20-plus a night and this team doesn’t quite have that.
Although I don’t think it’s their time quite yet, this team will be a case-study on whether a balanced — if not overpowering — offense is enough to win in June when mixed with an astounding defense which Houston does have. Watching this team defend is contemporary art.
Detroit Will Finish in the Top Eight in the East
Fuck it, I’ll buy this! If Houston’s defense is contemporary art, Detroit basketball is an absurdist, experimental art house movie. This team can’t play a normal game no matter how hard it tries and I eat up every second. Currently 7-10 and eighth in the mess that is the Eastern Conference, the Pistons would be in the Play-In if the season ended today.
Speaking of trying hard — Detroit won’t have a talent advantage every night but I think it’ll have an effort advantage every night. Winning 31 games total in two years must be humbling; most of this roster remains from those seasons, too, and it’s pretty clear a month in these guys — Cade, Duren, Stewart, Ivey — are reshaping the horrors of their past into inspiration for a brighter future.
Tim Hardaway Jr. and Malik Beasley aren’t even that good but their impacts are massive because they know, like, where to stand. That sounds like a joke but being an NBA player is probably the most important skill they bring to this team (they’re both shooting pretty well too, to be fair).
Detroit is currently eighth in the East and there aren’t a ton of teams in back of them I think will pass them up; Indiana and Philadelphia are the two teams that are clearly better than Detroit when healthy but it doesn’t appear either will be healthy soon. We’re already about 20% through the season so the idea that teams will get healthy and rattle off a bunch of wins gets less realistic by the day.
Shaedon Sharpe is The Guy in Portland
I saved this for last so non-Portlanders wouldn’t get bored. For the folks who stuck around, you get rewarded with Blazers talk. Sorry / thanks.
Anyway, yes I believe this trend. Shaedon (17.8 PPG, two 30+ games so far) is the building block in Portland. All-Star Games aren’t out of the question if he learns how to pass a few times a game and dribble consistently. I’m sold on the scoring firepower and creation upside enough that his very, very obvious deficiencies don’t bother me yet. They might bother me eventually but I’m not sweating right now — he’s 21! I think he ends up clearing the 20 PPG mark pretty comfortably this season.
Donovan Clingan and Toumani Camara should also stick around for a very long time (Deni Avdija can join that group if he stops being sorta bad like 60% of the time.) Clingan might be a top ten interior defender already and Toumani shoots threes at a 40% clip now and still locks up opposing wings. He’s going to make way more money than anyone expected.
Anfernee Simons will remember how to shoot eventually and his numbers will tuck up, but overall I think we’ve seen the best of him (which is pretty good, by the way) and I don’t think he’s the point guard to pair with Shaedon in the long-term blueprints. I will wish him the very best wherever he ends up. I sense a 6MOY in his future, maybe in like… Minnesota?
If Scoot Henderson can be a high-level backup I’m calling it a win at this point. Yes, I’m sad about it.
one thing I believe is The Broken Press is so back
Sc👓t <\3