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9 Observations From The NBA’s Opening Week

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The NBA season is well underway. While it’s too early to make sweeping conclusions about anything or anyone, it’s time to start thinking about how the year will take shape. All 30 teams have played at least two games, and each team will have its set of wrinkles they need to iron out through an 82-game season. Some wrinkles bubble and swell up to become full-blown problems, and others are neatly sorted out to become a part of a team’s identity. This is inherently how a narrative is created about each team.

So, let’s make some of our own. Here are nine observations from the first week of the NBA season.

(Note: please remember these are very early observations and are subject to change. But that’s the beauty of it!) 

The JJ Redick-Led Los Angeles Lakers Are Well-Coached

The reviews are in! JJ Redick is a good head coach. The Los Angeles Lakers have started the season 3-0 for the first time since 2010-2011, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves, Phoenix Suns, and Sacramento Kings to open the year. You can attribute that to a few things.

For starters, Anthony Davis has been the best player in the NBA to start the season. He’s averaging 34 points, 11 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and four stocks in almost 38 minutes a night, while shooting 57 percent from the field, 40 percent from three (five total attempts) and 80 percent from the free-throw line. Rui Hachimura has been aggressive as a starter, taking over 12 shots in each of the Lakers’ three games and getting to the rim more often. Austin Reaves has looked fresh, thanks to no USA Basketball this summer, and has been the dynamic combo guard we first saw help the Lakers to the Western Conference Finals in 2023. And LeBron, even at the tender age of 39, has still been LeBron.

Although some of that is due to a hot start for the Lakers’ core, this team has looked better on the offense because of Redick’s brilliance as a tactician. They’re focusing on winning the possession battle, which means more offensive rebounds = more shots = more opportunities. They’re trying to limit their turnovers to give themselves the most chances possible on offense.

He’s utilizing Davis as an offensive hub more often, putting him in five-out/Delay concepts that force him to make decisions with the ball in his hands. In that sense, he’s empowered an incredible play-finisher to become more of a creator. It’s had incredible results, with players like Reaves and rookie Dalton Knecht really thriving next to the star big man.

For a team that didn’t change much in the offseason, the Lakers look and feel different. That’s because of their coach.

Dyson Daniels Has Been A Revelation For The Atlanta Hawks

Dyson Daniels has been everything the Atlanta Hawks wanted from Dejounte Murray: a utility knife guard who can defend at the point of attack, make plays offensively and ease life for their star guard, Trae Young. He’s been useful as a screener, diving into the paint and roaming around the dunker spot to finish in traffic. He’s good at creating paint touches and getting into the teeth of the defense, and the three-point shooting has been mildly functional so far (he’s 4-of-12 on the season).

But perhaps more than anything, he gives the Hawks a legitimate defensive stopper to throw onto superstars — something they haven’t had in the Trae Young era.

Among Daniels, Jalen Johnson, No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risascher, Onyeka Okongwu, DeAndre Hunter, Bogdan Bogdanovic and Clint Capela, the Hawks have a legitimate platoon to throw out to try and insulate Young defensively, and enhance his creation juices offensively. But it’s all thanks to Daniels being a seamless fit in their system and looking like the All-Defensive-level defender he always had the potential of in New Orleans with the Pelicans.

Tre Mann Is Here To Stay

The long shorts, the tattoos, the crossovers, the shin-angle flexibility — Tre Mann would be the Peter Parker eyeglasses meme with Allen Iverson. Mann’s NBA future was growing uncertain while he was with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He couldn’t crack the rotation as the team began to surge in the Western Conference, and his playstyle wasn’t conducive to winning in that setting.

Things have changed since Mann arrived in Charlotte last season. In 28 games with the Hornets, Mann put up 12 points, four rebounds, five assists, and almost two steals while shooting 36 percent from behind the arc on four attempts a night. It flew under the radar on a bad team. Mann continued his impressive run this preseason, averaging 16 points. Still, not much noise.

In Mann’s first three games of the season, he scored 24 points in Houston to help the Hornets come back and beat the Rockets. Then, he followed it with 17 points and 14 points in close losses to the Hawks and Miami Heat. Folks, Mann is here to stay.

He is the perfect spark plug off the bench for the Hornets, creating in isolation, using his wonderful ball-handling skills to create separation on his shots and has already markedly improved as a playmaker since earning time in Charlotte.

He’s also one of the league’s most entertaining non-star players. And what he’s doing right now seems highly sustainable.

Tyrese Haliburton Is Slumping… And It’s Concerning

Before the Indiana Pacers’ Sunday afternoon loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, Tyrese Haliburton shot 1-of-16 behind the arc in their first two games. Against Philadelphia, he made 4-of-9 and had his best game of the season, hitting an impossible circus shot to force the game into overtime, but the overall lack of aggression, combined with the shooting slump, is alarming.

Haliburton’s three-point shooting is essential to his advantage creation. The Pacers’ high-octane offense last season was predicated on Haliburton running high pick-and-roll. He’d reject the screen to settle into a pull-up jumper, get downhill or draw two defenders to the ball and allow the Pacers to play four-on-three. Without the three-point shot, or at least its threat, the Pacers offense is stuck in the mud.

It should be noted that this Pacers team is evolving. It’s figuring out how to fully integrate Pascal Siakam, while also giving Andrew Nembhard ball-handling opportunities next to Haliburton, who is being a bit passive.

Still, Indiana can’t live with Haliburton being a defensive negative and so timid offensively. This eventually has to change. I’m confident the Pacers can solve it.

The Denver Nuggets’ Bench Has Been Abysmal

Ring the alarm. There were many questions about the Nuggets’ lack of depth entering this season, and those questions have already become full-blown concerns. Through two games, Denver’s second unit is shooting 22 percent from the field and has scored just 27 total points. The Jamal Murray plus bench unit (in a small sample of just 11 minutes) has a net rating of minus-37.3.

Russell Westbrook and Dario Saric have been negatives on the floor, with Westbrook unable to stretch the floor or put pressure on defenses and Saric unable to be a true center against NBA-level talent. Sophomore Julian Strawther has struggled, as has third-year wing Peyton Watson, who’s tried to shoot the ball more this season, but is 0-of-5 from deep.

This might be the worst bench the Nuggets have had in the Nikola Jokic era, which means he’ll have to do more heavy lifting than ever before. It just feels like a disastrous recipe for a team trying to contend and needs improvement, yet has very few avenues to actually do so.

Should The Minnesota Timberwolves Morph Their Identity To Fit Julius Randle Or Vice Versa?

Anthony Edwards had some interesting postgame comments after the Timberwolves beat the Kings last week.

While on the surface, I appreciate Edwards encouraging his new teammate — who went off for 33 points and five threes that  night — I do wonder whether that’s in the Timberwolves’ best interests long term: adapting around Randle.

Of course, any good partnership comes with its fair share of sacrifice. The Wolves will have to adjust to life with Randle’s slower, methodical, isolation-heavy style compared to Karl-Anthony Towns’s quick-trigger, three-point-happy offense. Naturally, Randle could do some good for Minnesota’s offense, which ranked 17th in points per 100 possessions last season and failed in the Western Conference Finals. But it’s not like Randle’s been a playoff juggernaut.

More than anything, though, it seems as though the Wolves have also had to sacrifice defensively with Randle, who isn’t as big as Towns, and hasn’t yet paired well with big man Rudy Gobert. When they’ve thrown out lineups with Randle and Naz Reid, they’ve just been bulldozed in the paint.

At this point, I’m not sure I know if Randle or Minnesota should be the one changing more in this new context. But it’s a question worth considering as the Wolves shift their identity throughout the season to create a (hopefully) amicable system with Randle in the fold.

The Los Angeles Clippers Are Going To Be A Handful For Anyone

Despite Kawhi Leonard’s absence, it’s been quite the start for the Clippers. They were narrowly defeated by the Phoenix Suns in their home opener inside the brand-new Intuit Dome and pulled off two impressive road victories against the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors over the weekend.

James Harden has totaled 75 points, 25 rebounds, and 35 assists. He’s greasing the wheels in a very helio-centric manner reminiscent of his Houston Rockets days. Ivica Zubac has scored at least 20 points in all three games, and his pairing with Harden has been seamless.

Norman Powell has gone scorched earth. He eviscerated the Nuggets with 37 points and dropped 20 on the Warriors, most of which came in the second half. Their rotation of Derrick Jones Jr., Nicolas Batum, and Terrance Mann has provided the perfect perimeter defense to insulate Harden’s mishaps at the point of attack, while Zubac, as always, has been great at cleaning things up inside.

This team plays hard, is well-coached by Ty Lue, and is very annoying to face any given night. With so much talk of the Clippers being bad this season, the actual players on the team certainly appear to have heard the noise and want to prove people wrong.

The Milwaukee Bucks Look Old

I don’t want to sound too reactionary, but losing to the Chicago Bulls and Brooklyn Nets in one weekend is cause for concern. Milwaukee gave up 133 points to the Bulls on Friday and 115 to the Nets on Sunday, the latter of which propelled Brooklyn head coach Jordi Fernandez to his first career win.

Despite Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard getting their usual numbers, the defense has been abysmal. Brook Lopez, Gary Trent Jr., Bobby Portis, Taurean Prince and Co. has just looked… old. Perhaps Khris Middleton’s return will help right the ship, but it sure won’t address the fact that they look slow out there.

I really don’t want to jump the gun on this one, but it’s something to monitor, especially with the supposed pressure the Bucks are feeling to contend this season.

As Advertised, he Boston Celtics And Oklahoma City Thunder Are A Cut Above

In contrast to Milwaukee, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Boston Celtics have both looked like true title contenders. If you took a poll of 100 NBA fans prior to the start of the season, I’d wager the most common Finals prediction would be these two facing off. So far, it looks like that’d be the safe pick.

The Celtics have been so good they caused an outcry across NBA media for the rules around three-point shooting to change, claiming what they’re doing is boring.

The Thunder have been a stifling defense. They’re hounding players at the point of attack with the likes of  Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Alex Caruso, Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace and Luguentz Dort comprising an absolutely dominant group.

Inside, it seems big man Chet Holmgren has taken a leap as a creator, driving to the basket, scoring and making plays for his teammates, and being his usually dominant defensive self. Even more intriguing is the Thunder look great, despite the absence of their key offseason addition in Isaiah Hartenstein, who is out for an extended period because of a fractured left hand.

It’s only been a few games, but right now, the Thunder and Celtics are a step or two above everyone else.

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