The first week of the NBA season is in the books. Who won the week? What are we overreacting to? Our writers break down the best and the worst of the season so far.
1. Name a big winner from the first week of the season.
Vincent Goodwill: The Oklahoma City Thunder (beating teams by nearly 20 points a night). They are looking to break the trend of a new team at the top of the West every year. Granted, the schedule hasn’t been tough, but 3-0 is 3-0, including that demolition of the Denver Nuggets in Denver. It looked like JV against the varsity team, especially now that Chet Holmgren (23.7 points, 13 rebounds, 4 blocks!) appears to be in full bloom. The Thunder look like the best defense in the league, and this is without Isaiah Hartenstein. We have a problem here, folks.
Kevin O’Connor: JJ Redick. The Lakers are 3-0 and look like a night and day difference compared to last season. The offense is playing with so much more motion, and has different layers to their actions. And Anthony Davis has been unlocked: AD is averaging 34 points while racking up 11 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 2.3 blocks, and 1.7 steals. The team has quite a similar roster but has a brand new process and dramatically better results. Redick is the difference.
Dan Devine: Picking the Celtics feels too easy. They’ve tripled down on last season’s championship-winning offensive formula, winning their first two games by a combined 43 points, and Jayson Tatum’s averaging 33 points a game and shooting 54% outside the paint with that I-guess-it’s-not-broken-anymore jumper. So … let’s go with:
Ivica Zubac. A Clippers team that’s going to be without Kawhi Leonard for the foreseeable future needs somebody besides James Harden and the always-ready-to-fire Norman Powell to pick up more offensive slack. Through three games, Zubac has been the biggest beneficiary of the redistribution, averaging 5.6 more field-goal attempts per 36 minutes than he did last season, posting by far the highest usage rate of his career, sitting second in the entire NBA in frontcourt touches, post-ups and points in the paint per game, and leading the league by a mile in touches at the elbow and in the paint.
Zu’s making something out of all those extra opportunities, too, scoring 22.7 points per game — nearly double last season’s mark — on 59.2% shooting to go with a league-leading 14 rebounds and 4.3 assists while serving as the back-line eraser on a Clipper defense that ranks fourth in points allowed per possession. L.A. exits the first week at 2-1, with road wins in Denver and Golden State, thanks in large part to a very large Croatian who’s enjoying the chance to stretch and explore.
Morten Stig Jensen: The Orlando Magic. Young teams tend to be good at one thing to start, such as defense which we saw from them last season, but struggle to find a secondary skill. The Magic asked all of us to hold their beer, while they’ve started the season firing up 3-pointers over 42 times per game. Last year’s season-high in attempts for them was 46. They’ve eclipsed that twice in three games already.
Rohrbach: Evan Mobley. The Cleveland Cavaliers have started 3-0, and wouldn’t you know it: Mobley has the second-highest usage rate on the team behind Donovan Mitchell. We’ve been clamoring for this for years now, and it appears new head coach Kenny Atkinson has unlocked Mobley in a way that is maximizing the offense. (Their 125.5 points per 100 possessions are second only to the Boston Celtics.) We already knew his impact on the defense, but if Mobley can continue shooting — and making — 3s, the Cavs might just solve their spacing issues.
2. Name a big loser from the first week of the season.
O’Connor: Nikola Jokić. Ah, so you thought you could make it work with Russell Westbrook, huh? Unfortunately, Westbrook is shooting 11.1 percent from the floor through two games. The Nuggets have a 54.9 offensive rating in the 24 minutes Jokić has sat, and Russ has been on for 22 of those minutes throwing up bricks. But it’d be foolish to blame Westbrook entirely. Jamal Murray continues to show signs of regression. And the departure of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (following the loss of Bruce Brown the year prior) is being severely felt. Jokić is still individually great. But Denver doesn’t resemble a contender yet.
Goodwill: The entire Denver Nuggets outfit. Michael Porter Jr. and Jamal Murray, your presence is required at the front of the line. It’s two games, which bears repeating, but MPJ is shooting 30 percent and Murray is hopefully shaking himself from a sluggish postseason and summer. Jokić (41-9-4) had a suitable-for-framing performance against the try-hard Clippers and it still wasn’t enough. The Nuggets are defending the 3 well, but they’re not making any (28.8 percent), which means the lack of space around Jokić will turn him claustrophobic pretty soon.
Rohrbach: Tyrese Maxey. The Philadelphia 76ers generated a ton of excitement over the offseason, adding Paul George and a revamped supporting cast around Joel Embiid and Maxey. They were supposed to be serious championship contenders. Only for Maxey to find himself at the helm of the same old situation. George is injured. We’re not entirely sure what is wrong with Embiid, though it is serious enough to keep him from the start of the season. And Maxey is not equipped to handle the pressure that comes his way when his co-stars cannot shoulder their load. His 31.3 points have required 28.7 shots per game. This is not a sustainable model.
Morten Stig Jensen: Surprised it took this long to make it to Wisconsin. The Bucks just lost to Chicago and Brooklyn back-to-back, which necessitates at least a bewildered sigh of disappointment. This is peak Giannis Antetokounmpo, and a presumably healthy Damian Lillard. Even if the rest of the roster consists of random guys named Doug and Chris from the local YMCA, you need to win those.
Devine: The Pacers. After needing a big fourth-quarter run to avoid an opening-night loss to the (admittedly looking more competitive under J.B. Bickerstaff) Pistons, Indiana proceeded to get its doors blown off by the Knicks and drop an overtime decision at home to a 76ers squad missing Joel Embiid and Paul George. Not ideal!
The Pacers rose to the Eastern Conference finals on the strength of one of the most potent offenses in NBA history; through three games, they sit just 24th in points scored per possession. They’re turning the ball over more than last season, scoring in transition less, and taking a smaller share of their shots either at the rim or from beyond the 3-point line. Tyrese Haliburton has missed 30 of his first 44 shots, including 20 of his first 25 3-pointers, and hasn’t looked quite like himself thus far; making matters worse, entering Sunday, his teammates were shooting just 28.1% off of his passes. This Indiana attack has yet to resemble the one that torched the league last season. Until it does, you can expect to see more losses than wins.
3. What’s the biggest overreaction from the first week?
Devine: … is Cam Thomas going to lead the NBA in scoring? I mean:
I mean:
I mean:
Through three games, Thomas is averaging 30.7 points in 34.6 minutes per game on 48/46/90 shooting splits, coolly and comfortably slicing and dicing opposing defenses. He’s just outside the top 10 in usage rate, taking nearly eight more shots per game than the next-most-ambitious Net (Dennis Schröder) on a Brooklyn team that many expect to hold a fire sale as the season wears on … which, in theory, should open up even more shooting possessions for him, an even broader canvas on which he can paint grand true-hooping masterpieces.
How many games the Nets are going to win, how hard they’ll actually try to win them now that they have their own 2025 first-round pick back, how complete a player Thomas can be: these all very much remain open questions. On the matter of how he puts the ball in the basket, though, it feels like the only thing left to learn is whether or not Jordi Fernandez will give him the ball enough to do it more often than anyone else in the league. Because if Jordi does, Cam’s sure as hell gonna try.
Rohrbach: Are the Los Angeles Lakers really for real? They are 3-0 against three good teams — Minnesota, Phoenix and Sacramento — and owners of a top-five offense. A recipe for success, especially if Anthony Davis is going to play like an MVP candidate (34-11-3-2-2 on 57/40/80 shooting splits). But they are +35 in Davis’ 31 minutes on the bench, which seems anomalistic. What if another number — the 8.9 points per 100 possessions they are being outscored by when Davis and LeBron James are on the floor together — is closer to the real version of these Lakers?
O’Connor: The Bucks are in trouble. They’re 1-2, the defense is in shambles, and the offense still is disjointed despite Damian Lillard looking healthy and Giannis still doing Giannis things. Doc Rivers appears to be struggling, but he also doesn’t have much depth to work with. This bench stinks. Khris Middleton is still sidelined too. But next up on their schedule: Boston, Memphis, Cleveland twice, Utah, New York, and then Boston again. It’s about to get ugly.
Jensen: Are the Nuggets already in trouble too? Denver’s loss to the Clippers was not great, but you can justify the L to Oklahoma City, and you also need to factor in that this team needs a little time to gel due to the changes in personnel. Not to sound overly simplistic, but Russell Westbrook isn’t going to shoot 11% from the field all season — and if he is, removing him from the lineup altogether should solve some of their woes. Nor is Michael Porter Jr. going to hit just 30%. The sample size is too small for panic to set in yet. If they’re still below .500 by mid-November, then we’ll have another conversation.
Goodwill: Do we know exactly when Joel Embiid will play? Being in the Olympics not too long ago, one would think, would keep him in shape and have him ready for the season. But it doesn’t feel like he’s even going five-on-five yet with his own team. Announcing he won’t play back-to-back games was bold enough, considering the league is launching an investigation into it, and wanting to be fresh for the playoffs is admirable.
But the regular reason has to matter, and they can’t leave all the responsibilities to Tyrese Maxey — you don’t want to run him down having to cover for Embiid and Paul George. He’s at 43 minutes a night and shooting 35 percent. He woke up in the fourth and OT against Indiana, but the 76ers could be playing with fire if this continues.
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