Boston’s Jayson Tatum has gone to another level this season and is a strong early contender for MVP. Photo: AP.
Well, that all happened pretty quickly!
We’re already at the quarter mark of the NBA season and that means that we can start to make some definitive calls on how teams are travelling that are absolutely guaranteed not to come back and bite this writer on his posterior!
Today we’ll look at the Eastern Conference, with eight teams going under the microscope, and the other seven to be examined later in the week.
The Western Conference will receive their grades soon as well.
**A note that these grades are weighted against a team’s pre-season expectations.
Atlanta Hawks (13-12 record at the time of writing)
Grade: C
There is something that is just not right with this team.
Major off-season acquisition Dejounte Murray has impacted the Hawks defence exactly as the front office hoped he would, with Atlanta now decidedly average at that end of the floor instead of the tyre-fire it has been over the past few seasons.
Offensively, Murray has been able to maintain his numbers though understandably he is averaging three fewer assists.
The team, however, has struggled when Murray is on the floor without Trae Young, scoring about 10 points less per 100 possessions – a number startlingly close to last year’s figure when Young sat.
The bigger concern, though, is Young and his relationship with the rest of the organisation. His recent run-in with coach Nate McMillan is the sort of incident that can split a team in two.
Does the team back its star man, or does it baulk at supporting Young given he essentially abandoned the team shortly before a game?
Young’s performance in the press conference the next day doesn’t speak well of the young man’s humility, either.
You can’t help but feel that there is a move coming for the Hawks, be it a trade or McMillan being shoved through the door marked ‘Do one’.
Boston Celtics (21-5)
Grade: A+
The Celtics were expected to build upon an NBA Finals appearance and sit atop the conference, aided by shrewd off-season additions in Malcolm Brogdon and Danilo Gallinari.
Then they lost their starting centre Robert Williams to a long-term injury, ‘Gallo’ went down with a knee, lead assistant coach Will Hardy went to Utah and head coach Ime Udoka copped a season-long suspension due to, uh … shenanigans.
Boston, though, has played ball like none of that upheaval happened.
It sports – by quite a margin – the NBA’s best record. Its league-leading offence is humming, Jaylen Brown has taken another step and Jayson Tatum has made The Leap.
The Celtics’ defence has slipped, though Williams’ return should remedy that.
In a field that is both deep and tight, 24-year-old Tatum might be the league’s MVP to this point of the season.
Brooklyn Nets (14-12)
Grade: D+
That grade stands for Drama Plus.
Nobody really knew what the Nets would give us this season, given Kevin Durant’s age, let alone his rather pointed trade demands, Ben Simmons’ ability to actually play basketball and injuries to the supporting cast.
It turns out ‘KD’ is still amongst the best handful of ballers on the planet while Simmons, after a slow start, appears to be finding his groove and the supporting cast is healthy.
What wasn’t on anybody’s bingo cards, was Kyrie Irving coming awfully close to starting a race war.
Even outside of that well-covered topic, the Nets roster remains an array of mismatched parts, either too flimsy on defence if they run with shooters or too cramped space-wise if they shore up the D.
Whilst nobody will want to play them in a playoff setting, these Nets are surely on their last ride.
Charlotte Hornets (7-18)
Grade: D
If LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier and the perma-crocked Gordon Hayward had been healthy for the whole season, the Hornets might be a competent basketball team.
Alas, they haven’t and the team is not.
Those injuries are the only thing separating Charlotte from an F.
Without Ball, Charlotte’s half-court, and overall, offence rank dead last in the NBA and the run-and-gun Hornets are only 27th in transition offence, though that number would surely skyrocket if Ball and the banished Miles Bridges were in uniform.
Steve Clifford is a wonderful defensive coach but even he can’t ‘MacGyver’ a top-10 defence out of this group.
The reclamation of Dennis Smith Jr’s career has been a … well, not quite a highlight. Maybe highlight adjacent? It’s a nice footnote.
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Chicago Bulls (10-14)
Grade: D-
The Bulls chose their path. They chose … poorly.
In an effort to keep free-agent-to-be Zach Lavine in town, Chicago decided to go all in.
To that end, the Bulls certainly succeeded as their star guard inked a long-term deal with the team.
In every other facet of the direction shift, they’ve failed.
DeMar DeRozan has tailed off a little from his stellar campaign in 2022 and at age 34 that shouldn’t be a surprise.
Unfortunately, DeRozan’s biggest impact as a Bull has been to expose Lavine as a clear number two option incapable of carrying a good team by himself.
The Bulls paid a heavy price for Nikola Vucevic – Wendell Carter Jr is simply a better player than him, now (not to mention Franz Wagner, the man drafted with a pick that came along with Carter).
That’s before we even get to the fact that the Bulls owe Orlando another first-rounder, likely to again be a lottery selection in a loaded draft.
Lonzo Ball, so important to the Bulls up-tempo style, has played less basketball than Ben Simmons in the past 12 months.
This is a team that needs to swallow its pride and start over. Its big moves simply have not worked.
Cleveland Cavaliers (16-9)
Grade: A+
Speaking of pushing their chips into the middle of the table, the Cavaliers made their biggest move since the ‘Return of The King’ in trading for Utah’s All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell.
The difference between the Bulls and Cavs, though, is that Cleveland made its move from a position of strength rather than desperation.
The Cavaliers already had Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen under contract. Now, with Mitchell on board, they possess the best young core in the NBA.
The Cavs have weathered the absence of Garland to put forward a highly efficient, if painfully deliberate, offence, and, behind the devastating Mobley-Allen combination, a miserly defence.
Surprisingly, Cleveland’s bench – perceived as a weakness given the depth they let go in order to obtain Mitchell – has the best net rating in the entire NBA.
Alarmingly, though, whilst the Cavs have heavily outscored opponents when either Garland or Mitchell are on the floor without the other, they are being outscored when they share the court.
Detroit Pistons (7-20)
Grade: B
Sure, the Pistons’ win-loss record leaves a lot to be desired, but this is a team that wasn’t supposed to win this season, even after the addition of veteran sharpshooter Bojan Bogdanovic.
This campaign is all about the development of Detroit’s army of youngsters.
Cade Cunningham hasn’t played for a month due to a shin injury, but that has allowed third-year guard Killian Hayes to play extended minutes.
To the Pistons’ delight, the Frenchman has shown signs of life after looking for all money a lottery bust.
His backcourt partner Jaden Ivey has been erratic, though has shown enough flashes to justify his ‘Westbrook-lite’ draft comparisons.
Isaiah Stewart continues to flash enough outside game (36.3 per cent on four deep attempts per game) to suggest that he can eventually dovetail with the Pistons’ other lottery selected rookie Jalen Duren, the league’s youngest player.
Duren is all upside and has shown enough to suggest he’s going to have a long and productive NBA career.
With Cunningham set to return shortly, the Pistons will continue to blood their young core with the hope of securing another high draft pick at season’s end.
Indiana Pacers (13-12)
Grade: A-
The only factor stopping the Pacers from receiving a surprising A+ mark is that their fantastic early form might be taking them out of the running for prized presumed No. 1 draft pick Victor Wembanyama.
That said, you can’t argue with what the Pacers have done thus far, with some big scalps claimed through the first six weeks of the season.
Led by the irrepressible Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana is one of the most enjoyable watches in the NBA.
Averaging 19.4 points (on outstanding 47/41/86 shooting splits) alongside a league-leading 11 assists, Haliburton is driving this young and exciting team forward.
He’s a primary reason why Bennedict Mathurin might win Sixth Man of the Year as a rookie, Myles Turner is averaging career-high points and Jalen Smith and Aaron Nesmith look like legitimate NBA rotation pieces.
Look, the Pacers surely won’t keep this up. They have, though, shown proof of concept for their young core.
This is a team that is on the right path, far quicker than most expected.
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