Real or Fake? Parsing through the First Weeks of the Season

My favorite part of the early NBA season is the overreactions that inevitably occur when teams have played less games than chicken fingers in a caniac combo. Still, there’s always some things that show up early that bear out through the course of the season and others that are indeed just a flash in the pan. The fun part is deciding which is which. I’ve curated the list below  into 5 things I believe will continue to show through the season and even further into the future, and 5 things that will regress back to the mean or what the consensus was. Enjoy.

Real: Wembymania

What else is there to say except that the young man has delivered on his promises. The first four games of his NBA career he played up to realistic expectations put on him. The offense, while overall being a bit slow and awkward, could be seen shining through in flashes. On defense, his impact was immediately felt as was expected. His size and length causes all sorts of problems for opposing offenses, making it just so much harder to get clean passes through or an open shot up. And then, on Thursday, he had his game. He hung 38 points on the Phoenix Suns and looked unstoppable on offense during that game, helping them to close out his spiritual predecessor down the stretch. And the scariest thing about how good he’s looked so far? This is only the beginning.

Fake: The Spurs Record

Despite everything I just gushed about Wembanyama, I do expect the Spurs, currently sitting at 3-4, to finish with around 30 wins or so. While I do expect Wemby to make an overall positive impact and finish the season as the Rookie of the Year, he can only do so much, and the rest of the team around him, while having good individual players, is still young and lacking enough legitimately good role players to finish in the play-in. Sochan at point guard, which I absolutely love that the Spurs are trying, is clearly out of his depth in that role. The minutes where Wemby and Tre Jones share the court together seem to flow better for both Wemby and the entire offense, so if the Spurs are interested in milking every last win out of this season (which I don’t think they should), inserting Jones into the starting lineup might be a necessity. It’s important for the Spurs to take things slow and try to get another high draft pick this season to get a crack at finding a second young star to pair with Wemby. We’ve seen it before with Luka and LeBron where their teams were too good too fast and they eventually struggled to get where they wanted to go due to not having that second top 15, top 20 guy.

Real: The Middleton Problem

Unfortunately for the Bucks, most NBA and Bucks fans are not naive children. The organization has tried to play off his injury as minor and the recovery process going according to plan, but it’s very clear something major is wrong. Before the season the word was he was continuing to come back from the injury and would be a full go by the time of the regular season and that there was nothing to worry about. That was a lie. He’s averaging under 20 minutes and 10 points a game and is not the old Middleton on defense. A large part of the Bucks championship run in 2021, his play is essential to help keep the Bucks up to pace with the Celtics. And right now, it’s not looking good.

Fake: The Bucks Defensive Rating

This has been talked about by many already, but the Bucks defense so far has been historically awful. Needless to say, it will not be that way the entire season. Adrian Griffin is a first time head coach, and while it remains to be seen if he’s a legitimately good one, he introduced a new defensive scheme that is far different from Coach Bud’s, until Giannis and Brook Lopez recommended they go back to their previous scheme. On top of that, the exchange of Damian Lillard for Jrue Holiday is certainly a downgrade on the defensive end, and the rest of the Bucks still need to get used to that change. As the season goes on the defensive rating will improve, as it’s just about impossible to have a historically awful defense with both Giannis and Brook Lopez on the court for the majority of your teams minutes.

Real: The Cam Thomas Experience

Much to my confusion, Cam Thomas struggled to get consistent minutes last season even after dominating in summer league and dropping back-to-back-to-back 40 point bombs in February. Finally though, he’s playing a key role for the Nets this season. He’s averaging 29 points in 34 minutes played and has hit some of the most ridiculous shots of the early season, including one where he jump stopped with his back turned completely to the basket, turned 180 degrees as he’s rising up, and drained the bucket. He has his nights where it’s not dropping for him, but when he’s on, it’s a completely surreal experience to watch. Thomas is already a top five scorer in the NBA, and he’s barely 21.

Fake: The Nets Early Success

Overall, the Nets just do not have the personnel to make a real run at a play in berth. The love the media seems to have for this team has confused me, as it seems many people think the Nets are going to be a solid team that can make a run at the play-in tournament. I am not of that belief. While full of defensive wings, they don’t have much scoring besides Bridges and Thomas, and possibly Dinwiddie if he’s having a nice game. Their record last season after the trades was not good, and while they’ve started okay, I do expect the record to fall off and their season to end before they expect it to.

Real: The City Edition Jerseys are BAD

If you haven’t seen them all yet, don’t even bother to look unless you feel like causing your eyes to bleed. The simple ones are boring and uninspired while the more complex ones are doing too much. I like the city edition idea, but whoever is coming up with the designs clearly needs a break. I understand the NBA wants it money which is why the new jerseys are released every year, so instead of releasing these jerseys that are made by the same company and design team every season, let fans come up with designs and have fan voting determine the design for that season. With the influx of hundreds of choices to choose from every season from fans, and the voting determining the winner, most of the teams city jerseys would be much improved.

Fake: The Suns Early Losses

You should not be worried about the Suns losses so far. They lost a weird game with uncharacteristic mistakes down the stretch and another where Wembanyama went crazy, both to the Spurs. They lost another to the 76ers, who are just a good team. However, the real concern is the health of their stars. Beal, Booker, and Durant have not played a single regular season minute together yet. There’s still no clear time for Beal to return, and Booker has had an ankle injury and a calf injury limiting him to just two games on the young season. The Suns are not who they will be in April right now, but they need to get their stars back and playing so they develop their chemistry by the time the games really start mattering.

Real: In-Season Tournament Hype

The NBA could not have asked for a better opening day for the NBA Cup. Most of the games were close down to the end, emphasized by a beautiful Curry game winner that was kissed off the glass. No one sat out to rest, and, wether due to the courts, the jerseys, or just that we knew it was an NBA Cup game, it did feel a bit different. More people had eyes on these games, which is the NBA’s goal. So far it’s looked good and successful, and I believe it will only get better and more intense as we get to the knockout rounds and players are really trying to get that money.

Fake: The Cavaliers Struggles

Despite a rough start to the season and another loss to the Knicks, you should not be worried about the Cavaliers. They were without Jarrett Allen for their first 5 games, and without Garland as well for 4 of those. Meanwhile Donavan Mitchell has been shot out of a cannon so far this season, averaging 33 points on 67% TS, and looks like he’s taken another step up. Now that their main four are all back and healthy, expect them to shoot up the standings and finish with a top 5 seed.