When can we stop calling something a small sample size?
Where the standings are now is surely not where they will end up come April: Cleveland won’t stay undefeated, Charlotte won’t finish fourth in the East and surely Dalano Banton won’t keep averaging 31.1 points per 36 minutes, right?
But trends that remain topical through the year do start to emerge only weeks in. Pre-season masks have come off and some fans are having to swallow bitter pills. Problems, solutions, winners and losers have all started to come into view.
The 10-game mark seems to be a good point in the NBA calendar to start taking measures of where teams stand. Whether they’re overreactions or glaring reads, well, only time can tell, but we can analyze what we know now.
Let’s take a look at some teams, players and general trends that are looking promising or downright concerning at this point in the 2024-25 season.
THE GOOD
The Phoenix Suns in crunch time
Through the early stretch of this season, Phoenix is sitting pretty atop the West with an 8-1 record thanks in no small part to their work in the clutch.
As it stands, Phoenix is by far the best crunch-time team in the league with a 7-0 record in clutch situations (five minutes left with the score within five points). Going into Sunday, they’re on a six-game win streak with all six of those victories finishing within six points or fewer.
They have a 133.3 offensive rating (fifth-best) and 88.1 defensive rating (fourth-best) in the clutch and are the only team in the top five of both. They also have an absurd 72.1 per cent true shooting while holding opponents to a 37.5 effective field goal percentage.
Usually, it’s hard to believe in teams that get their wins by the skin of their teeth, but most teams don’t have Kevin Durant, one of the best finishers in the history of the NBA. Most teams also don’t go from a 20-21 record the prior season in clutch games to a spotless record the next.
It should be interesting to see how they fare in the coming weeks with Durant out.
Oklahoma City’s defence
In an era that prioritizes offence and an unforgiving efficiency from three-point range designed to run up the score, the Thunder have turned back the clock.
Going into Sunday, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander & Co. have posted a 97.2 defensive rating, good for 24th all-time and the best mark in over 20 years. Only three teams since the turn of the millennia have held teams to fewer points per 100 possessions — the 2003-04 Spurs, Pistons and Pacers.
Their defensive rating is 10 points better than the second-best Golden State at 107.3, as big as the gap between second-place and 23rd.
They have a 16.8 turnover percentage and force 19.9 turnovers per game, the highest mark since the 1997-98 Boston Celtics. They also hold opponents to a 46.9 effective field-goal percentage, which is the lowest mark since the three-point revolution of the mid-2010s.
Chances are, the Thunder fall back to Earth at some point and adjust to the era, but when they traded for Alex Caruso to pair with point-of-attack nightmares Luguentz Dort, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, this is exactly what they had in mind. It’s also worth keeping in mind that their rim-protection acquisition Isaiah Hartenstein has yet to suit up this season.
Believeland is back … and so is Darius Garland
Beating the 2015-16 Warriors’ 24-game undefeated streak to start the season is likely something that will never be duplicated, but the 11-0 Cavaliers sure don’t seem ready to stop.
Their offence has been the main proponent of the early-season surge, as the Cavaliers are pacing the league with a 123.1 offensive rating and have five 130+ point outings. Their 52.7 field goal percentage, 42.7 three-point percentage, 63.8 true shooting percentage and 61.6 effective field-goal percentage all lead the league by wide margins.
At the forefront of their attack is the usually steady Donovan Mitchell, but alongside him, finally recapturing his place, is Darius Garland.
The 25-year-old is averaging 20.5 points and 6.6 assists while shooting 53.8 per cent from the field, 47.5 per cent from deep and 95.0 per cent from the line and seems to have fully recovered from a jaw injury and subsequent health setback that saw him lose 12 pounds last season.
He’s taking, and making, every sort of three-point shot and shooting 40 per cent or better from everywhere but the top of the perimeter.
An All-Star in the 2021-22 season, Garland has taken his game back to those heights while helping lead the Cavaliers back to the level they knew when LeBron James was at the helm.
THE BAD
The Least-ern Conference is in shambles
It’s hard to remember the last time the East was a deeper conference than the West, but for the divide to be this glaring is another thing altogether.
Going into Sunday, two teams in the East have records above .500, the Cavaliers and the Celtics.
If we’re playing the blame game, the onus of the East’s complete face plant comes from two teams most thought would be contenders coming into the season — the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers. The two perennially contending sides are a combined 3-14 as they approach the 10-game mark.
Philadelphia at least has an excuse, as former MVP Joel Embiid has yet to suit up this season, free-agent acquisition Paul George has missed five games and breakout guard Tyrese Maxey is set to miss a couple of weeks with a hamstring injury. But Milwaukee’s efforts so far this season are unforgivable. More on them later.
Elsewhere in the East, somehow the usually downtrodden Hornets and Pistons have found themselves in playoff positions while the Heat are scuffling in 10th. Not to take away from the jumps that players like Jaden Ivey or LaMelo Ball have made, but the conference is loaded with teams that have no business being mentioned in the same breath as Boston or Cleveland.
The East is looking ugly, and anyone hoping that a breakthrough from a team like the Knicks, Sixers or Pacers would challenge the Celtics for the crown is in for a tough break.
Was Wemby crowned prematurely?
It’s a testament to the talent that Victor Wembanyama possesses that a stretch in which he’s averaging 18.3 points, 10.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.4 steals and a league-leading 4.0 blocks is considered disappointing. Those are the standards he set in the back half of last season.
In March and April last year, Wemby averaged 23.7 points, 12.0 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.0 steals and 4.4 blocks while shooting 45.8 per cent from the field and 32.0 per cent from three. Heading into the off-season, the hope was that the French phenom would be able to build on that and take his game, and the Spurs, to new heights.
He hasn’t delivered on those expectations as of yet, with San Antonio reverting to a style of play that has seen him more on the perimeter rather than at the rim.
So far, he’s shooting 7.1 threes per game at a 28.2 per cent clip and is ice-cold from everywhere beyond the arc, all while scoring at a 70.6 per cent clip at the rim. When you have extraordinary gifts like his, it’s confusing that the Spurs would let them go to waste.
In all fairness, the Spurs’ spacing has been lacking without Devin Vassell in the lineup and the team as a whole is shooting at 33.1 per cent from beyond the arc. But to use the biggest cheat code in the NBA as a floor spacer, despite his 18.9 per cent catch-and-shoot three-point percentage, feels like malpractice.
Big Buck hunting
To think that a team with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard is seen as a circled win is absolutely jarring. That’s the reality of the Milwaukee Bucks as of now, with the team unable to get it done on either side of the floor.
As of Sunday, Milwaukee ranks 20th in offensive rating at 111.7 and 22nd in defensive rating at 116.7, good for a -5.0 net rating. They’re not the worst team in the league, but they’re miles away from being near the best.
What makes it worse is that all their struggles are coming in spite of impressive offensive outings from their two superstars — Antetokounmpo is averaging 30.1 points while Lillard is back to his electric self with 27.3 points a night.
It’s the rest of the roster that should have the Bucks ringing the alarm. Rounding out their starting five are Brook Lopez, Taurean Prince and Gary Trent Jr., who together, are averaging 23.9 points per game. Second-year guard Andre Jackson Jr. has replaced Trent in the starting five for the past two games but has mustered up three and seven points.
Then off the bench, two-time Sixth Man of the Year finalist Bobby Portis has been a sieve defensively, as the team is 12.6 points better on that end when he’s off the court, and the usually dependable Pat Connaughton is shooting a deplorable 25.0 per cent from long range.
ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that the team is reaching out around the league for trades, hoping to get depth at the guard spots and help on the wing. However, the Bucks don’t exactly have tradeable assets any team would covet.
Milwaukee is in an extremely precarious spot. As a team with title aspirations and one of the best players in the world, it’s unforgivable to be this porous this early into the season. The seats are only getting hotter for guys like Doc Rivers, Darvin Ham and general manager Jon Horst.
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