We’re just a week into the NBA season, and a lot is going on. Most of what’s taken place has been surprising, which is a good thing for a few teams, and not so good for others.
Let’s discuss.
Familiar faces return to action
It’s the opening week of the NBA season and everything feels brand new. So, it’s only fitting that we begin the first column of the new season by welcoming back some of the NBA’s best, who we went without during the previous season.
I’m not talking about guys like Paul George and Damian Lillard who played some of the 2021-22 season but disappeared for the majority of it — although, you love to see a 40-piece by both of them (two from Dame), just a few games into the season. Rather, I’m specifically referring to the handful of players we didn’t see on the court at all last season.
It’s great to see a mentally and physically healthy Ben Simmons return to the hardwood. He helps raise the Nets’ floor, even if the reviews have been mixed thus far, largely due to his hesitation on the offensive end of the court for some strange reason.
Watching Zion Williamson play basketball has also been delightful. He has already picked up where he left things back in May of 2021 when we last saw him.
Finally, I’m currently annoyed by the negative discourse around Kawhi Leonard and Jamal Murray (probably not as much Murray) already managing the load and sitting out on parts of back-to-backs. Everyone knows the league (and specifically the Western Conference) is better with the two of them on the court. It’ll be even better once they shake off the rust from their ACL surgeries and find their groove.
Tanking season is not yet upon us
It wasn’t too long ago that an all-time tankathon seemed inevitable when teams like the Utah Jazz and San Antonio Spurs pulled the plug on what they had going on and opted for an abundance of draft picks to jumpstart a rebuild. Those potential tanks appeared even more likely when 7-foot-3 Victor Wembanyama came to the States for a couple of nationally televised games against Scoot Henderson and exited with the basketball world wrapped around his fingers.
But here we are a week into the season with the Utah Jazz and the San Antonio Spurs both 3-1 and the Spurs running over legitimate championship contenders in the Philadelphia 76ers. The “a week into the season” line in the previous sentence deserves a heavy emphasis, but the fact that these teams aren’t blatantly throwing in the towel from Game 1 is nice to see. Commissioner Adam Silver recently said that teams have been put on notice regarding tanking and mentioned having had prior discussions about potentially using relegation to prevent tanking — although he admitted that it doesn’t feel like a realistic solution. Could that be a reason why the all-out tanking is yet to begin?
Maybe. But the most likely reason is that most players couldn’t care less about tanking. They’re going to compete when they take the hardwood.
Odds movement
Warning: We’re moving into some awards talk (as it pertains to betting). Yes, already.
The beginning of the season has a weird way of saying a lot and hardly anything about what might happen to a specific team or player throughout the year. But unlike teams’ records and on-court production that results in wins or losses visibly seen in the standings, there isn’t any way to actually know where players stand in the awards races. Outside of the eye test, the most useful tools probably reside in the odds. And with a week of games in the books, players’ odds are already moving around. Here are a few noteworthy ones.
Jayson Tatum (+1200 to +600), Ja Morant (+1400 to +800) and Damian Lillard (+6600 to +2500) have all seen their NBA odds take a pretty significant leap since the beginning of the season. Tatum’s rise might be a case of trusting that the best player on arguably the league’s best team will sustain a fast start, while Morant’s and Lillard’s shortening odds could be a classic “absurd-numbers/team-on-back” type of case.
Christian Wood (+1000 to +400) and John Wall (+3500 to +3300) have also seen their odds move — not for the MVP, but for Sixth Man of the Year. And if you’ve watched either of the two up to this point, you’ve likely noticed how often they’ve looked like the second-best player on the team. As long as they don’t work their way into the starting unit, their odds will be some of the shortest throughout the season.
Sixth Man of the Year odds
There’s very little movement within the Defensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year and Coach of the Year futures, so there honestly isn’t any need to really get into those. The only other bit of award movement worth bringing up is in the Most Improved Player category.
Mostly everything towards the top is about the same — Anthony Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton, Tyreese Maxey, etc. all have nearly identical odds as they did the day before the season started. But whose numbers are shrinking by the second? De’Aaron Fox. Moving from +8000 to +2500 in a matter of days feels very important. I guess that’s what happens when you average nearly 32 points, six rebounds and seven assists.
The bottom line is that these things are fluid. You’ve just got to get in on them at the right time.
(Photo of Damian Lillard: Kiyoshi Mio / USA Today)
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