October 21, 2024
Eric Hartline/Imagn Images
The Sixers and New York Knicks loaded up with star-power over the summer. Will either one have enough to usurp the Boston Celtics as the best team in the Eastern Conference?
We are just one day away from the beginning of the 2024-25 NBA season, as the Sixers look to navigate a unique Eastern Conference:
• A clear front-runner to win the conference exists, but its two strongest potential opponents are teams with extreme health-related concerns.
• Three teams with young stars -- one of which made a run to the Eastern Conference Finals last season -- are vying to emerge in the upper tier of contention. How many of them can actually fit?
• There will be a very good team that is forced to participate in the Play-In Tournament. There will also be a team with 30-35 wins that is forced to participate in the Play-In Tournament.
With all of that being said, the time has come to take a stab at predicting the regular season standings in the Eastern Conference:
Eastern Conference Preview Series
Boston Celtics | New York Knicks | Milwaukee Bucks | Cleveland Cavaliers | Orlando Magic | Indiana Pacers | Miami Heat
Let's not overthink this. The Celtics won 64 games last season, cruised to a championship parade and brought back every single rotation player from their title team.
How long it takes Kristaps Porzingis to return to action is something to monitor, but the Celtics arguably still have the best starting five in the NBA without the Latvian center. Boston's depth was once considered a weakness, it is now a clear strength thanks to outstanding offensive talents like Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard as well as players like Luke Kornet and Xavier Tillman who head coach Joe Mazzulla can call upon for quality minutes when needed.
Here is where we get a little crazy. I am buying the second consecutive Magic leap behind young stars Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero. On paper, Orlando does not profile as a top-two seed. But a win total in the 50 range could get it done, and after a 47-35 season in 2023-24, I see the Magic improving from last season's breakout. Wagner, Banchero and the rest of their incredibly young core will continue to get better, and the much-needed arrival of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is an enormous boost for their rotation.
Orlando's lack of consistent perimeter creation gives me pause when it comes to their playoff hopes, but their suffocating defense will power them to plenty of regular season wins -- and they have more than enough trade ammunition to add a dynamic playmaker should one become available.
I picked Orlando head coach Jamahl Mosley to win NBA Coach of the Year; the award is typically given to the person in charge of a team that outperforms its regular season expectations.
MORE: 2024-25 NBA awards picks
New York had a massive success of a 2023-24 season and blew much of their roster up. I would not have made either of their franchise-altering trades over the summer -- one for Mikal Bridges, the other for Karl-Anthony Towns -- but I understand the rationale behind each one and respect the Knicks front office's willingness to take major risks in hopes of improving the team's championship odds.
I am lower than most on the Knicks in the regular season, and it has little to do with the talent on their roster.
This is an extremely top-heavy team -- its starting five projects to be outstanding, but they are starved for bench contributors and have next to no avenues to upgrade the middle and back end of their roster. It is certainly possible to win that way, but two of their four best players -- OG Anunoby and Towns -- have dealt with extensive health-related issues. Going with a top-heavy approach to roster-building without accumulating depth becomes extremely risky when your core pieces are so injury-prone.
Wait, that sounds like the issue with another team I know... More on that soon.
Indiana's run to the Eastern Conference Finals last season was aided by plenty of injury-related luck, but that does not mean this roster is anything other than very good. Tyrese Haliburton is a star on the borderline of superstardom, and Pascal Siakam is a perfect secondary option. Head coach Rick Carlisle has designed a system that embraces all of the strengths of his roster, from Haliburton down.
The Pacers have plenty of talent already, but it is also young talent. Siakam and our old friend T.J. McConnell are their only projected rotation players older than 28 years old; Myles Turner and Obi Toppin are the only others above 25 years old.
Cleveland made a bold decision to not just run back last year's team, but double down on three of their four cornerstones. After Donovan Mitchell agreed to an extension -- a massive win for a Cavaliers team that many believed would eventually lose its best player -- Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen each signed long-term extensions as well. Darius Garland has four years left under contract as well.
The big bet being made in Cleveland is that a coaching change will help Mobley and Allen iron out their unusual offensive dynamic down low and enable Mitchell and Garland to find the right mix of ball-handling opportunities. J.B. Bickerstaff is gone and Kenny Atkinson is in. If the Cavaliers earn one of the top seeds in the Eastern Conference, Atkinson could have a strong case for Coach of the Year.
Everything I said about the Knicks building a roster around stars liable to suffering injuries with shaky depth? To varying degrees, those same concerns apply to the Sixers.
The argument in the Sixers' favor is that their depth is much stronger than that of New York. Sixers head coach Nick Nurse's rotation has a few potential weak links depending on how the season unfolds, but he has far more bench pieces to work with than his New York counterpart, Tom Thibodeau.
There will be more Sixers predictions to come over the next couple days -- on top of all of the ones that have been published to date -- but, truth be told, any seeding placement between No. 3 and No. 7 seems realistic. The inherent volatility that comes with building around Joel Embiid will do that.
Sixers player previews
Jared McCain | Adem Bona | Reggie Jackson | Guerschon Yabusele | KJ Martin | Ricky Council IV | Eric Gordon | Kyle Lowry | Andre Drummond | Caleb Martin | Kelly Oubre Jr. | Paul George | Tyrese Maxey | Joel Embiid
A Giannis Antetokounmpo-led team being in the Play-In Tournament seems hard to fathom, but last year a Joel Embiid-led team finished the season in this slot. Something has to give, and as multiple teams in the Eastern Conference have real chances to ascend, one must go in the opposite direction.
I do not trust the Bucks to stay healthy and I do not trust the overwhelming majority of their depth pieces. This team is incredibly expensive, not very flexible, getting older and might be on the verge of descending.
The Heat feel like a lock for this slot -- they likely do not have enough talent to win more games than any of the seven teams ahead of them (barring some sort of catastrophic injury to Embiid, Antetokounmpo or Mitchell), but they seem far too good to lag behind any of the remaining teams.
How Jimmy Butler performs -- and emotes -- will be a fascinating subplot of the season. Miami declined to offer him an extension, and now Butler is entering what could be a contract year (he has a player option for 2025-26). Will he be particularly motivated to log heavy minutes and stay on the floor to prove he remains worthy of a long-term commitment?
Many seem to believe the Hawks will take a noteworthy step back from last season's hugely-disappointing 36-win season after trading Dejounte Murray to the New Orleans Pelicans; I am less convinced that the move will cause them to get much worse. Trae Young has officially entered the underrated territory; his ability to engineer an entire offense is rare and should not be taken for granted.
Elsewhere, athletic forward Jalen Johnson had an excellent third NBA season in 2023-24 and has become a popular pick to be Tyrese Maxey's successor as the NBA's Most Improved Player.
This does not figure to be a good team. It might even be one that is rooting for draft lottery ping pong balls more than winning games. But somebody has to nab the final Play-In Tournament spot, and I went with Charlotte, which hired Charles Lee for his first head coaching job.
The main reason I went with Charlotte here is that they have more NBA-caliber players than any of the teams behind them. LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller are their main attractions, but more Mark Williams will aid their frontcourt, as will a full season of Grant Williams. One of my favorite under-the-radar translations of the summer was Charlotte being able to get Josh Green from the Dallas Mavericks for only two second-round picks. Green is a quality two-way wing who is only 23 years old with a reasonable contract; Dallas only moved him because he became a cap casualty of their Klay Thompson acquisition.
The Raptors are not good, and that is okay. It is jarring, though, how expensive their roster has become over the next few years. Scottie Barnes is their clear centerpiece, and he is genuine building block material. Other than that... I loved Immanuel Quickley on a rookie contract. I am less excited about his value on a five-year contract worth up to $175 million. Jakob Poeltl has three years and $58.5 million left on a contract that I cannot imagine anybody taking off the Raptors' hands.
Get ready to hear about a lot of Bruce Brown trade rumors. Salary filler in the deal that sent Siakam to Indiana, Brown was expected to be moved at last year's trade deadline or over the summer. So far, he has remained in Toronto. But he could be one of the most impactful players traded in the upcoming winter.
The Sixers' second home game of the year comes against Tobias Harris, Paul Reed and the Pistons, who are seemingly just shooting for competence in the wake of an embarrassing 14-68 season in 2023-24. Detroit added enough NBA-caliber players aside from Harris and Reed to be much more competitive.
Malik Beasley is one of the best and most underrated three-point shooters in the NBA, and he should give Cade Cunningham some much-needed space. Tim Hardaway Jr. theoretically performs the same function. Simone Fontecchio is a good player, and a full season of his services will be helpful for Bickerstaff, who landed in Detroit after being fired by Cleveland.
I think lots of people are failing to grasp just how bad this Bulls team could be. They lost their best player, DeMar DeRozan, for next to nothing. They traded their most valuable trade chip, Alex Caruso, for one of the least efficient offensive guards in the NBA who is also a poor defender. Josh Giddey is going to be given every chance to justify the trade, and that alone will drive down Chicago's win total.
Elsewhere, there are still no takers on Zach LaVine's disastrous contract; it might be wise for Chicago to just hold onto the veteran scorer at this point. Former Sixers first-round pick Nikola Vucevic experienced a major decline in 2023-24 and Patrick Williams was given a five-year, $90 million contract despite having little NBA production to write home about.
The Bulls will lose their first-round pick if it does not fall within the top 10, so they will likely do whatever necessary to ensure they hang onto that selection in what is believed to be a stacked draft.
I hope Dorian Finney-Smith, Dennis Schröder and Cam Johnson are all renting. Each one should draw trade interest midseason, and a Brooklyn team in the opening year of a rebuild should be looking to collect even more future assets than they already have (an argument could be made for keeping Johnson, but he is the most valuable of the Nets' potential trade pieces because of his outstanding three-point shooting).
This Nets season represents what could be Ben Simmons' final chance to prove he is still capable of being a valuable piece for an NBA team. Things are not looking good.
The Wizards should wear their 2024-25 record as a badge of honor. It will be very bad, but it will signify actual direction -- which the franchise has lacked for a long time. Take your lumps now, hope for the best from youngsters Alex Sarr and Bilal Coulibaly, trade veterans like Kyle Kuzma and Malcolm Brogdon to add more future value to the organization and cross your fingers when the lottery takes place.
MORE: 2024-25 Sixers schedule details
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