The NBA season is underway and chaos already abounds. The Grizzlies are one of three undefeated teams atop the Western Conference; the Heat are winless and in disarray; and there has been a rash of major injuries to superstars across the league, raising countless questions about how teams go forward from here.
Given all that, it's time for our overreactions from the season's first week.
The basketball gods are cruel and merciless
This isn't even an overreaction. The season has barely begun, and there's already been an endless string of serious injuries to big-name players. Anthony Edwards and Kawhi Leonard were the latest of the bunch. On Tuesday, news emerged that Edwards will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right knee and miss up to two months. That's a huge blow for the Wolves, who were off to a 3-1 start. Now, Minnesota will have to figure out a way to stay afloat without Edwards, who was the second leading scorer in the NBA behind only Luka Dončić. Meanwhile, the Raptors will be without Leonard for "a period of weeks" while he deals with swelling in his right knee.
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It continues. The Jazz will be without Jaren Jackson Jr. for six to eight weeks after he tore his MCL. The Magic lost Paolo Banchero for four to six weeks with a right ankle sprain, as well as Jalen Suggs, who will be re-evaluated in two weeks after bruising his right knee. Pistons center Jalen Duren is out at least two weeks with a hamstring strain. Kristaps Porziņģis, Kon Knueppel and AJ Dybantsa have yet to play for their respective teams due to various injuries/health issues. And after sitting out all of last season, Ben Simmons blew out his Achilles before playing a single regular-season minute for the Kings.
And then there are the Thunder. Jalen Williams played just 33 games last season but returned healthy and ready to go this year -- only to suffer a dislocated ankle and a fractured fibula against the Clippers over the weekend. If you haven't seen it, don't search for it. It was the kind of gruesome scene that made many people recall the awful and unforgettable injuries previously suffered by Gordon Hayward and Paul George. The Thunder haven't officially declared Williams done for the season, but it would be surprising if he recovered from significant surgery in time to return. Oklahoma City also lost Cason Wallace with a torn labrum. Same situation there in terms of facing long odds on bouncing back from surgery in time to play this season or postseason.
The NBA is at its most enjoyable when the brightest stars are available to shine on the court. This is a dark start.
The Thunder are still one of the teams to beat in the West
Deep breath, Thunder fans. No one wanted to see OKC lose Williams and Wallace. It was a brutal blow for the players and the team. Adding another injury to the ever-growing list, Alex Caruso -- who was expected to play increased minutes and take on more responsibility with two of the Thunder's best defenders on the mend -- made it just nine minutes into their game against the Suns before spraining his ankle. He's already listed as out for Wednesday's outing in Dallas and is expected to miss some time.
It's hard to imagine a worse scenario for the Thunder, who began the season with the best odds to win the NBA title. But even with those unwelcome developments, OKC is still among the betting favorites to make a deep run this postseason. The Thunder (+380 at FanDuel) are second behind only the Spurs (+280) to win the Western Conference and the NBA Finals. That has everything to do with what Sam Presti has constructed in Oklahoma City. The Thunder are the deepest team in the league -- and now that premise will be tested.
Ajay Mitchell -- who began the season on the shortlist for Sixth Man of the Year candidates -- will be called upon to provide a scoring boost in the absence of Williams. (Mitchell is already off to a good start there, scoring an efficient career-high 30 points in 25 minutes in a win over the Suns on Monday.) The same goes for Jared McCain, who has morphed from a luxury addition following a trade with the 76ers last season to a critical component this year. You can also imagine Mark Daigneault leaning more on his bigs with Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein and rookie Aday Mara. Jaylin Williams and another rookie, Bennett Stirtz, will have to gobble up minutes off the bench. And as always, the whole thing revolves around Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Losing two players as important and talented as Williams and Wallace is an unlucky and unwanted turn of events, but as long as the reigning two-time MVP is on the floor, OKC remains formidable. If any team can handle this kind of strife, it's the Thunder.
The Knicks still have to shake off that hangover
Hey, look at that: New York finally won a game. The Knicks beat the Pistons at home on Tuesday, which undoubtedly came as a relief to them and their fans. New York started the season with three duds, losing at home on ring/banner night to the Sixers, falling in Boston to the Celtics, and then faceplanting at home to a Magic team that was without Banchero. Not how they wanted to begin their title defense.
The 0-3 start was the worst beginning to a follow-up season by the reigning champs since the Mavericks dropped their initial three games 15 years ago. When you win the first championship in 53 years, you can be forgiven for enjoying yourself over the summer and being distracted by the spotlight. It also probably didn't help their focus that the team paused negotiations with Karl Anthony-Towns and Josh Hart, or that the organization initially duped employees with a championship ring email that was actually a cybersecurity test (before later realizing how bad the optics are on that kind of thing and promising to retroactively make it right).
The good news, to the extent that there is any when you only win one of your first four games, is that Towns has played well so far -- he's averaging 21 points and 12 rebounds on 62.2% shooting from the floor -- even while the rest of the team has been largely inconsistent. The upcoming schedule is also encouraging. Over their next seven games, the Knicks play the Bulls twice, as well as the Nets and Bucks. After that, they have a road trip featuring games in Toronto (without Kawhi) and Minnesota (sans Edwards).
The Knicks still have quite a bit of work to do to return to form, but finally securing that first win did "a lot" for their psyche, as a relieved Jalen Brunson acknowledged after beating the Pistons.
The Nuggets should be the most worried
You know things aren't going well when your three-time former MVP picks a fight with the fans -- and then doubles down. The Nuggets are 1-2. After Denver completed a 23-point comeback to barely beat the Pelicans at home in overtime, for the team's only win of the season, Nikola Jokić called out the fans for having the audacity to call out the Nuggets.
"I think those fans that booed, they don't need to come anymore," Jokic said. "If you guys follow us, you know that we never quit and we came back from much worse for similar situations. So if they ask me, they are not welcome anymore."
Given a chance later to walk that back, Joker followed it up by saying he was sticking to his original point: "I think they are not real fans." Maybe this is an offshoot of the European soccer ethos that encourages supporters to rally behind their team when they let in a goal or get in a tough spot. Or maybe Jokić is just in his feelings about the Nuggets playing like garbage on the whole to start the season. As a native Philadelphian, it's always amusing to me when players get sore about people letting them know that they're not performing well. The easy solution is to perform better and the boos will abate. Problem solved.
Unfortunately for the Nuggets and their sensitivities, they followed up that win over the Pelicans by getting smoked by 20 on their own floor by the Warriors. Not ideal.
Actually, the Warriors are in worse shape
Yes, Golden State topped the Nuggets in Denver for its only win of the season, but that's only one more victory than the winless Pelicans and Kings have mustered. Not exactly the kind of company the Warriors want to keep. Golden State lost its opener at the Lakers, fell at home to the Grizzlies, then took another L on the road in Phoenix. Through their first four games, the Warriors were 19th in net rating and looking lost. The question is how they find their way, or if that's even possible.
Rookie Yaxel Lendeborg has been one of the few bright spots in the Bay. He's second on the team in points per game behind only Steph Curry, and he leads the Warriors in rebounds per game and verbal altercations with rival MVP candidates. (That last bit is saying something considering Draymond Green is still employed by the Warriors.)
The question is whether reinforcements will arrive in time to turn the Warriors into a competitive team and give them a shot at the play-in (sorry, Warriors fans but the playoffs proper look awfully far away right now). Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody are both recovering from knee injuries and it's uncertain when they might be able to return and contribute. Meanwhile, Porziņģis is reportedly contemplating his future in basketball while dealing with health concerns. It doesn't seem like the Warriors should expect any of them back anytime soon -- or, in the case of Porziņģis, who just got a new two–year contract worth $40 million -- possibly at all.
Curry also signed a new deal this offseason: a two-year. $115 million extension. That was less than he could have demanded in order to give the Warriors increased flexibility and options to put a better team around him. He'll be 39 in March. Time is not on his side, and neither is this Warriors roster.
Check that, the Heat are in the biggest trouble
Woof. The Heat are 0-4. They got blown out at home on opening night courtesy of the Wolves, then followed that up with losses to the Pistons, Hornets and Mavericks. This is obviously not what the Heat or Giannis Antetokounmpo had in mind when he left Milwaukee for South Beach.
"I said what needed to be said to the media," Antetokounmpo said. "Like we all have to take a deep breath and eventually we're going to figure it out, we cannot press the panic button… It's only going to get worse if you start panicking, man. I've been in this position before. I lost five in a row, I lost seven in a row… I don't like this feeling, the moment we turn this around -- I'm going to always remember this feeling and I'm going try to not get back to this feeling."
When your current awful start makes you recall other dreadful stretches where you dropped five or seven games in a row, you're in a bad spot. It's also not a good sign when one of your starters says exactly what Heat fans don't want to hear and had convinced themselves all offseason wouldn't be the case. After Miami acquired Antetokounmpo, critics wondered about the floor spacing and shooting around him -- or more accurately about the lack of those things given the roster construction. Just this week, Davion Mitchell underlined those very concerns, especially as they pertain to Antetokounmpo and his fit with longtime Heat fan favorite Bam Adebayo.
"I think I got to do a better job of not letting [Adebayo] get lost in the game," Mitchell said after Monday's loss to Dallas. "He got to be more aggressive. I think that he will. He's still trying to figure it out because I said this before -- I think him and Giannis play in the same spaces, and then when Giannis is on the floor, he's on the floor. He can't be in those spaces."
Mitchell isn't wrong. But it's not solely on Adebayo. Antetokounmpo is just as much to blame for the clunky offense.
Adebayo admitted his shot is "not going in" at present, then complained about how "the outside noise wants to make me the scapegoat." At least he's taking this well.
What was that about Giannis saying it wasn't time to press the panic button?
Winners and losers of NBA's first week: Giannis' Heat are ice cold, OKC injuries and new-look wonders
Sam Quinn
Luka looks like an MVP frontrunner
Last week, Dončić put out an open letter to the fans, promising no excuses and no days off. Some of us were skeptical about that. Since then, Dončić has done his talking on the court. That includes the first 50-point game of the NBA season and a historic night that etched his name in the Lakers' already overpacked record book.
The oddsmakers have Victor Wembanyama as the frontrunner, followed by Gilgeous-Alexander, then Dončić. That makes sense. But Wemby started the season by publicly declaring he was overthinking things (before course correcting and feasting on the hapless Kings on Tuesday night), and SGA could very well be the latest MVP unseated by voter fatigue, even if he has another impressive season while trying to carry the injury-impacted Thunder. Imagine a scenario where Dončić keeps dropping monster numbers for a new-look Lakers team that defies expectations and finishes higher in the Western Conference standings than anyone outside of LA could have predicted. Add in the Lakers allure and if he can stack stats and wins early, he moves to the front of the line.
The Sixers have backup center problems that LeBron can't (or won't) solve
Stop me if you've heard this before. When Joel Embiid is unavailable, the Sixers don't have a good solution for the giant hole he leaves in the frontcourt. That evergreen truth was further complicated when Philly lost Ariel Hukporti to an Achilles injury before the season even began. Following that development, coach Nick Nurse rattled off a litany of names who might see some time at the five, including LeBron James. That sounded good in theory -- but not so good to James in practice. When Embiid sat the second night of a back-to-back, James started as a small-ball center in a loss to the Pistons, then explained why that wasn't a long-term fix.
"Well, s--- we got an MVP over there. I'm not here to have a sustainable role at the 5," James said. "You got Joel Embiid on the team. ... If I was to say I was signed here to have a sustainable role at the 5, I don't think none of us would actually want that. I can do it, but... we have [Embiid]."
They have Embiid, yes. On paper. Sometimes even on the floor. But as everyone is painfully aware, especially and including the Sixers, Embiid's availability is subject to review. He's missed 150 games over the previous three seasons. That necessitates a contingency plan. James might not want to be part of it, but extenuating circumstances sometimes force people into undesirable situations. As ever, it's something to monitor for the Sixers going forward.
If they have any chance of actually competing for a championship, they'll need to stay afloat -- or at least not drown -- during the non-Embiid minutes and games. That might mean James doing something he doesn't want to do. But hey, at least James is having a good time with his new teammates.
LeBron and Dean Wade have the best handshake in the league
Literal definition.
