It’s been a few months since I’ve written about basketball, but the NBA is officially back, and I’ll begin with Chris Finch, the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Speaking to Mike Vorkunov at the Athletic, Finch discussed the arrival of LaMelo Ball and said, “We referred to ourselves as a moody team in the last couple of years at times, and it’s probably gotten in our way. We’ve traded moodiness for giddiness, so we’ve got to kind of get back to some sort of equilibrium. But it’s been fun to go to work every day so far.” And let me tell you: I relate!
When my co-host Ben Golliver left to take a job at ESPN last May, I came very close to shuttering Greatest of All Talk altogether, and moving on to new projects, and embracing a basketball-lite existence. There were two reasons I didn’t. First, Adam Mares was willing to step in as a guest co-host for six weeks to help me finish the season, which I felt we owed to the audience who had supported us for about 10 years (including five years as paying subscribers). Adam is one of the smartest basketball thinkers I know and a very chill person overall, so the chance to podcast with him every week, even for a month and a half, was a no-brainer as a short-term solution.
Second, the ensuing run through the playoffs was SO good, and so much fun, it reminded me how much I love basketball—the spectacle of it all, character studies across years of setbacks and breakthroughs, communal experiences, and yes, even Twitter. It’s all so insane and great, and over the course of those few weeks I realized I simply couldn’t bail on that world altogether. Meanwhile, Adam was incredibly gracious and enjoying the episodes despite the low key impossible task of taking over a show that had been dominated by two guys for 10 years, while GOATs gave the new version of the show a shot and continued to engage. Owing considerable gratitude to both, now here we all are, ready to begin a new season. I can’t wait.
There is, however, a more specific love of mine that’s also part of the story. Readers may recall that in late June I wrote about the tortured spectrum of emotions I experienced as my favorite basketball team gave Trae Young every last dollar on a new contract and selected A.J. Dybantsa first overall in the NBA Draft. Moodiness is underselling it with respect to me and the Wizards for the past 10 years, and while I haven’t gone back to read that article, I imagine there are sections that read as fairly unhinged. Today, though, I’d like to provide an update.
The Wizards are going to be awesome this year—more fun than they’ve been in about a decade, and potentially pretty good. Top six in the East? It’s not out of the question that Kendrick Perkins is right. Play-in? Very, very doable. I’ve mentioned the Wiz breakout potential on GOAT for the past few weeks and it’s always delivered with laughs, but let me assure you that I’m entirely serious.
So what should basketball fans be preparing for? In brief, I think the young players in D.C. are better than most people realize, and the veterans have been called overrated for so long that they’re now slightly underrated. The current CBA provides a structural advantage to young teams with several rotation players on cheap rookie contracts, and that’s exactly where the Wiz are.
They’re working with stars the rest of the league had given up on (Trae, Anthony Davis, Deandre Ayton, Khris Middleton) and would-be college kids who are starting to put it together (Kyshawn George, Dybantsa, Tre Johnson, Alex Sarr, Justin Champagnie, Bilal Coulibaly, Will Riley, Bub Carrington). In a league full of top-heavy teams that struggle to fill out their rotations with credible starters and bench players, this team has 10 guys who all deserve minutes. There will be waves of long, bouncy young players who will take turns going off, Trae Young will be setting the table for them, and Anthony Davis will solidify the defense. That’s the dream, anyway.
The key here is that whatever you think of AD and Trae, the young players in D.C. are good. That may not be clear to national audiences who understandably ignored this team for the past few years, and who don’t realize quite how shamelessly Washington was tanking last season.
For those people, then: 6’8” Kyshawn George looks like a future All-Star on the wing who can shoot, beat people off the dribble, and pass as a secondary creator. He’s fantastic. Tre Johnson, hurt most of last season, is constantly in motion and should be one of the best shooters in the league. Honest to God, I can’t remember the last time the Wizards have had a young shooter this gifted; Bradley Beal is the only parallel, but Tre is a better shooter than Beal. As for Alex Sarr… I’m not totally sold on his star upside or that he’s as good as his numbers look (21 and 10 per-36, with 2.5 blocks), but he’s got size, mobility, and skills you can’t teach. With AD alongside him and both of them patrolling the back line as seven-foot free safeties, the defense should be decent for the first time this decade.
Speaking of size and skills: Dybantsa’s shooting and decision-making will be what determines his ultimate ceiling (6’9” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the very best case scenario), and so far it looks like all of that will be a work in progress. As I wrote in June, he wasn’t my preferred pick at number one. That said, at 6’9” and 220 pounds, he’s so big, fluid and aggressive that he should be a net positive from the beginning. That’s particularly true if he’s competing on defense, in which case his length will be valuable and he’ll terrorize teams in transition.
Bigger picture, I just need to pause and say that after a lifetime of squinting and praying that guys like Otto Porter, Rui Hachimura, or Troy Brown Jr. could magically improve in about five different categories and transform into genuine stars, A.J. has three or four plays per game that make clear he’s different. It’s awesome. And if the shooting improves over the next few years, I’ll be dead wrong about the number one pick.
The other young guys are wild cards (Coulibaly, Riley, Carrington), but they all have their moments and should be helpful. I should also note that Champagnie is a rock solid wing who provides some much-needed ruggedness on a team full of 21 year-olds. Am I crazy enough to be optimistic about Ayton providing something meaningful? I’m not, but he’s here as well, and if he’s asked to play 25 minutes-a-game, he may be halfway decent as a third big man.
Finally, Trae and AD. I’ve always been a fan of the latter. Durability concerns have been overstated when you look at AD’s prime (but please, don’t look at Dallas), and there was a 10-year stretch where he and Draymond Green were clearly the two best championship-level defenders in the league. Giannis was the only guy who ever really had a case for being in the same stratosphere. And even if AD’s only 70% of that player at 33 years old, that would still make him the best big man this team’s had since Chris Webber. Should the Wizards pay him $200 million when he asks for an extension this summer? I’m actually less opposed than most, but for now let’s see how this season goes and enjoy life with the most over-qualified placeholder in Wizards history.
And Trae. Full disclosure: I gave up on him as a credible superstar a full four years ago. The contract nearly gave me a psychotic break in June. This tweet I saw on Wednesday made me upset all over again. His shooting has been quietly bad for several seasons in a row, he’s lost a step athletically, and he may struggle to beat people off the dribble. Defense will of course be a nightmare.
However... If he buys into his role as a new-age Steve Nash, he remains one of the most gifted passers in the league. His assists so far in the preseason have been real assists—not bailout passes to stationary shooters after dribbling the air out of the ball for 18 seconds. He’s throwing 50-foot outlets and carving through defenses to make life easy for everyone else on the floor. I called this team the Showtime Wizards on the GOAT this week, and I think I may have been serious. And if that’s the direction the season heads, it will be because Trae is pouring all his energy into entering a new phase of his career and setting up Kyshawn, Tre, Dybantsa, and Sarr to beat teams. Do I believe he’s got that in him? When he was traded for nothing last January, did anybody?
Now it’s October, and I’m realizing that Trae is surrounded by more talent than he’s played with in his entire career, and he appears to be reveling in his role as set-up man. Granted, there’s been a rising sense of terror as I type all this and memorialize my confidence, but I see what I see and feel what I feel. Anyone who’d like to go glass half-empty on this team could point out that the veterans have not been healthy in years and landed in D.C. with giant red flags, while the young guys are completely unproven (particularly on defense) and likely a year or two away from consistently winning in any meaningful way. Also, head coach Brian Keefe has gone 43-160 since taking over two-and-a-half years ago and he might not be the right guy to make sense of a 10 or 11 man rotation.
On the other hand, I’m writing today as a very experienced Wizards pessimist. And I’m pretty sure that this year the pessimists will be wrong.
Ten Fearless Predictions
Nothing I include here will be more potentially incriminating than 1,500 words of sincere Wizards and Trae Young optimism, but just for fun as I finish a cross-country flight, here are a few more takes on the way into the season.
1. The Grizzlies will finish with a better record than the Jazz this year. Utah is every nerd’s favorite sleeper team in the West this year, but I’d like to formally out-nerd the nerds and go all-in on Ty Jerome, Walter Clayton, G.G. Jackson, Cedric Coward, Zach Edey, and Cam Boozer. A little bit of Quinten Post and Beef Stew sprinkled on top of all that? Eat your heart out, Danny. (I’m not betting on a Jerami Grant-aissance, but I’m not ruling it out, either.)
2. Caleb Wilson won’t win rookie of the year, but will be the best rookie from this class. I have yet to encounter a Caleb Wilson interview I don’t absolutely love. On the court, he’s a giant wing with great shooting mechanics, an A+ motor, and intangibles that guarantee he will get the most out of his athleticism. He will have an Anthony Edwards-like trajectory and ultimately be not only the preeminent Caleb in Chicago, but also the best rookie from this class five years from now. For this season, though, Boozer wins rookie of the year.
3. Eliminating tanking will be the best rule change of the Silver era. Watching all four top rookies will be one of the best parts of being a basketball fan this season, and even better, all of them will be trying to win all year long. I will probably write more about this at some point, but experiencing an NBA where everyone’s actually trying to win is going to be genuinely disorienting. It won’t eliminate all of the league’s malaise across seven months and 82 games, but I bet it will be an even bigger product improvement than most people expect.
4. JJ Redick will win Coach of the Year. It feels like the stars are aligned for an overachieving Lakers season. Despite an underwhelming bench, the departure of LeBron, and the potential mid-season departure of the GM who assembled this team (Rob Pelinka), the Lakers could easily win around 50 games and find themselves anywhere from third to fifth in the West. Given the narratives about what this team lost, not to mention how much fun they’ll be to watch, I bet JJ and Luka will get credit in equal measure when it works.
5. MVP will spark a constitutional crisis. Victor Wembanyama barely cleared the 65-game threshold for awards eligibility last year, and between his body and the way he plays, I think it will be close every single year. So while Wemby’s the clear MVP favorite right now, let’s say he misses that mark by April. Assuming Shai is healthy, he’ll have the best numbers on the best team and should have a pretty airtight case. So in that scenario, and in an era where voters feel obligated to support their case with numbers, how openly will anyone admit that they’re voting for someone else simply because giving Shai three straight MVPs is boring and arguably blasphemous? That sort of chaos is not only what I’m rooting for, but also what I expect we’ll see in March and April. (Or maybe Luka will dominate and make it easy for everyone).
6. The Sixers will be a play-in team. Don’t trust the defense, don’t trust the health, and don’t really trust the offense, either. Do I trust Nick Nurse, who hasn’t done a great job coaching at any point this decade? Regardless, what a ride it will be.
7. The Celtics will have the best record in the East. But remind me to be careful trusting Playoff Mazzulla by the time we get to April.
8. Cooper Flagg will make an All-NBA team and the Mavs will make the play-in. You may think this is a year early, but I’m not so sure. Kyrie’s playing for a new contract and has had 18 months to recover from his torn ACL, while Flagg should be even better than last season, when he finished the year looking like one of the 20 best players in the league. Dusty May and the supporting cast are wild cards, but more than anything, this is a bet against the rest of the West: the Blazers, Suns, Jazz, Kings, Warriors, Clippers, Grizzlies, and Pelicans. All those teams are mediocre, and four of them will make the play-in. Against that competition, Cooper can keep the Mavs’ heads above water.
9. No team will win 60 games, but the Kings will lose 63 games. Tanking is over, the whole league will be more competitive night to night, but the Kings are still the Kings. Acuff may look like a path out of this hell, but in fact he is exactly the sort of player who could entrench Sacramento’s reality for another four years.
10. The Cavs will be untakeable. Donovan Mitchell: how much longer do we have to keep doing this? They will be great in the regular season, but none of their top four have earned the benefit of the doubt in the playoffs, and I’m preemptively annoyed at having to pay lip service to their playoff possibilities as they win 50+ games in Cleveland this season. Can’t crush them, can’t trust them, can’t stand them. That said, the last team I was this confident dismissing was the New York Knicks last October.
One Giant Wild Card
Anthony Edwards is flat out spectacular, and he’s spent his career dealing with horrible spacing and subpar offensive teammates. LaMelo Ball will change those dynamics in Minnesota, and if Ball is healthy, watching them drive defenses insane will be one of the best night-to-night attractions the NBA has this season. Both their lives should be easier than ever, Jaden McDaniels is a dark horse All-Star candidate in his own right, and I understand why the players themselves are giddy about the possibilities.
On the other hand, will Ball be healthy? He missed 58% of Charlotte’s games in the three seasons before last. For that matter, how healthy will Edwards be? Last season was the first time he looked mortal from a health standpoint, and he spent much of that year—and the Wolves’ playoff run—battling nagging injuries that robbed him of his explosiveness.
This season feels like an inflection point for Ant’s career. It’s entirely possible the new era is a massive upgrade on the moody, clunky iterations of this team we’ve seen in the past. If so, Ant will be at the center of that story and will finish the season with a credible MVP case. But with a heavy heart as a longtime bandwagon driver, I must concede that betting on LaMelo is insane on its face, the defense looks wobbly as hell, and the October giddiness here could give way to a sinking March realization that the Wolves aren’t good enough, are out of moves, and that going forward Ant is closer to the 10th best player in the league than he is to number one.
Anyway, this is the number one League Pass team until further notice. I have no idea which way this story is going and I can’t wait to see how it looks for the next few months.
Seven Bet Your Mortgage Locks
Every new season on GOAT I open with five bet-your-mortgage locks of the year, and I actually forgot to do it during our preseason shows this year (pitfalls of going to once a week!). Nevertheless, traditions are traditions, so here are five seven win total bets that will 100% hit, keeping in mind that I went 3-2 last year and that “bet your mortgage” branding was more fun before gambling was legal and causing a whole host of problems.
Hornets — UNDER 37.5. I’m still flabbergasted by how much praise they got for the LaMelo trade. I understand why they did it and am not mad at it, but all they did was create a ton of work for themselves to find another star, a year after the best season the franchise had seen since Obama was president. For now, this is a confident bet against Brandon Miller as a franchise player as much as anything else.
Grizzlies — OVER 30.5. This might be too much Grizzlies stock, but the number is awfully low and half the Western Conference is mediocre. Give me a mostly healthy Edey season and mid-30s wins shouldn’t be a problem.
Pacers — OVER 44.5. I just want to state for the record that the drama and cruelty of Tyrese Haliburton’s Game 7 injury has overshadowed how brazenly the Pacers were screwed by officiating during the first half of Game 4 in the NBA Finals two years ago. They were running OKC out of the gym but the refs kept the Thunder in it, and then, instead of cruising in Game 4 and closing in 6, we were left watching Haliburton crumple to the floor in Game 7. It will annoy me for a lifetime. On the bright side, Haliburton is finally back, and among the cluster of pretty good teams in the middle of the East (Raptors, Heat, Sixers, Magic, Hawks), I feel better about Indiana than any of them.
Hawks — UNDER 43.5. In a loaded East, a few decent teams will take a step back. We know this. The problem I see for Atlanta is that none of their offensive players are very good, and the interior defense is especially soft.
Suns — OVER 38.5. Phoenix won 45 games a year ago, the depth in the West got worse, and the Pacific Division got way worse. Adam Mares has fully sold me on Maluach Madness, and while I don’t think the Suns will be as good as they were a year ago, they will be better than the young-ish teams (Grizz, Mavs) and potpourri of bad ideas (Porzingis, Ja, Brandon Ingram, Jamahl Mosley) that populate the West play-in zone.
Bonus 1: Rockets — OVER 48.5. As one of America’s last Reed Sheppard believers, I’m duty bound to be all-in and show deference to my favorite beat writer note of the preseason:
Bonus 2: Wizards — OVER 34.5. See above. It’s a brand new year. And yes, I will absolutely put my mortgage where my mouth is.
Sharp Text is extension of the Stratechery Plus podcasts Sharp Tech, Greatest of All Talk, and Sharp China. To subscribe and receive weekly posts via email, click here.