THE NBA RETURNS tonight — or in the early hours of tomorrow morning, to be precise — and there are plenty of interesting plots and storylines which will play out over the coming months.
Here are seven key pieces of information worth knowing and keeping an eye on, as basketball returns to combine with the NFL and truly mess with our sleeping patterns.
How dominant will the Golden State Warriors be?
Last year, the defending champion Golden State Warriors went 73-9, the best ever mark during the regular season. They did so by playing some of the most aesthetically beautiful basketball we have ever seen.
Behind Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, they then blazed their way to the NBA Finals for the second year in a row.
Once there, they took a 3-1 series lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers, a franchise led by LeBron James. Somehow they managed to let that lead slip, becoming the first team to ever blow such a commanding position in league history.
How did they improve on being just one game away from becoming the greatest team of all time then? By adding forward Kevin Durant, a top three player in the league and former MVP. Never have two MVPs [Durant and Curry] come together to play in their primes. What the Warriors are doing is unprecedented then, and some say unfair as well.
They enter this season as favourites to reclaim their crown, and they will do so with one of the most feared starting line-ups of all time. Some are concerned that the team sacrificed depth [parting ways with Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli and Andrew Bogut] to land Durant. At the rate this team can pour in three-point shots [league best 41.6% last season), it's not likely to matter.
Can LeBron James lead Cleveland back to The Promised Land?
Last season, LeBron James did the unthinkable and led a Cleveland team to their first championship in any of the four major American sports in over 50 years.He did so by defying the odds, and toppling an all-time great team in the Golden State Warriors. Although the pressure is off as a result of this monumental achievement, James will feel his team can once again reign supreme.
Really there is nobody else in the Eastern Conference who looks capable of challenging them. This is especially true with the Cavaliers returning all of their other key players from that title run in Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson and the enigmatic JR Smith.
James has extra motivation to get back to the top of the NBA mountain, however. Coming off six straight Finals appearances [in which he won three], four regular season MVP awards and that inspiring comeback, even the most staunch detractors of LeBron’s greatness are starting to whisper that he may now be on the same level as the great Michael Jordan.
A couple more titles and another MVP award, and the case could be made that James himself is the greatest player of all time. Worth noting, however, is how James has played nearly two seasons’ worth of minutes [46,862] more than anybody else since being drafted in 2003 [Joe Johnson is next with 40,736]. He’s been historically durable, but at 31 years of age, that’s got to come to an end sometime.
Expect to see James and the Cavaliers coast during the regular season, before coming to life in the playoffs.
Russell Westbrook’s revenge tour
The Oklahoma City Thunder have been a contending organisation since making it to the 2012 Finals as a young team. Led by Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka, their time to win a championship seemed to have arrived. This looked even more certain as they pushed the Warriors to the brink in the Western Conference finals last season.
Then Durant up and left for the enemy and Ibaka was traded, leaving the otherworldly Westbrook to fend for himself on this small market Oklahoma City team. Rather than plan an escape route himself though, he doubled down, signing an extension during the summer that will keep him with the Thunder until at least 2019.
With the team falling in the eyes of many, Westbrook will be on a mission to prove the entire world wrong when the season begins. Of the 24 players who averaged a triple-double last season, 12 of them could only manage the feat once. Westbrook did so 18 times, by far a league high.
He’s the closest thing the league has seen since Allen Iverson was snarling and chewing his way through opponents, and there’s a reason all- time greats like Jordan and Kobe Bryant have called Westbrook their favourite active player. #
The Thunder won’t win it all, but don’t tell Westbrook that. The first meeting between Westbrook and Durant on 4 November will be a must-see sporting event.
The Los Angeles Lakers will be fun again
The last two years have been statistically the worst in Los Angeles Lakers history, the team posting regular season records of 21-61 and 17-65 respectfully. It is no coincidence that those two years were the last of Kobe Bryant’s illustrious career with the team. Rather than fading out gradually the way so many before him have, Bryant — despite being riddled by injuries — went out his way.
This included a 60-point salvo in his final game at home against the Utah Jazz last season [that was achieved by taking 50 shots!]. With the Bryant retirement tour finally over, the organisation can move on with the young players they have collected through their now annual trips to the NBA Draft.
D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram and Jordan Clarkson may not be household names yet, but they will soon lead this team back to relevance. Russell, in particular, caught the eye as a rookie last season. Although no longer a premier destination for free agents each summer, this team will at least be fun to watch again.
They also hired former player Luke Walton as their head coach late last season. An assistant on the all-conquering Warriors teams of the last few years, he will turn them into a better long-range shooting team at the very least [the Lakers ranked dead last in three-pointers made last season at 31.7%].
Buy stock in the Minnesota Timberwolves
The Minnesota Timberwolves may not make the playoffs this season, but they’re on the fast track to big-time success. Despite having one of the most tortured fanbases in the NBA, the team now boasts two former first overall picks in the draft in Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.
Throw in the highlight reel that is Zach LaVine [he won the best Slam Dunk contest in over a decade at the All-Star game last season], and Ricky Rubio [made his debut as a 14-year-old with Joventut de Badalona] and there’s something special going on here.
Towns is the star here, and at 20-years-old was recently voted the one player the majority of general managers would build a team around if given the chance. A skilled big man who can attack and defend in equal measure, dominate around the basket and even shoot three-pointers, this team are going to cause opponents problems this season.
Hitch yourself to their bandwagon now, before everybody else follows suit. The hipster choice among casual supporters this year.
Beware the Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics had as good a summer as any team, signing notable free agent centre Al Horford, the big man joining a team that won 48 games last year.
The squad they currently have is nice in several areas, but it’s not enough to truly trouble the Cavaliers in the East. Their danger comes from what they could do, however, and the fact that they did something similar close to a decade ago.
Guys like Marcus Smart, Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder are all high-level NBA players, while incoming rookie Jaylen Brown looks the business too. But between their attractive players on friendly contracts and the mountain of draft picks they have amassed over the last number of years, the Celtics are major players in any blockbuster trade.
If a superstar becomes disgruntled elsewhere [such as DeMarcus Cousins or Blake Griffin], the Celtics have the necessary pieces to make the best offer in the league to trade for that player. They did something similar in 2008, in the space of 12 months going from afterthought to champions with the big-time trades to acquire the services of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. These two were paired with the lone star they had at the time, Paul Pierce.
They would appear to be one move away once more, as they already have two All-Star talents in Thomas and Horford. History looks set to repeat itself in Beantown.
Last chance for the Los Angeles Clippers?
With a core group of Chris Paul [the best point guard of this generation], Blake Griffin [a perennial All-Star and top-five player at his position] and DeAndre Jordan [one of the best centres in the game today], the Los Angeles Clippers have the tools to be great. This is even more true when you factor in a head coach in Doc Rivers who is among the best in the league, and a three-time winner of the Sixth Man of the Year award in Jamal Crawford.
On paper this team has it all, and yet they have never once gotten to the Western Conference finals in their five years together. Part of this is down to unfortunate timing with injuries, and the fact that better teams like the San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors have always stood in their way.
Nothing has changed in that respect, as the Warriors don’t look like relinquishing control of the West for the foreseeable future with the arrival of Kevin Durant. So this is surely one of the last cracks at winning it all that this version of the Clippers will have. At 31 years of age, Paul is getting no younger, and the lack of postseason success on his CV is a real eye sore.
Those rivals across the hall at the Staples Center, the Lakers, will be vying to be the hottest ticket in town before long once more as well.
Half a decade into their quest to win a title, the Clippers look as far away as ever, and that’s a concern.
