NBA Open Thread - Week 6

Folks... we’re officially on bozo watch:

In what will surely prove to be my favorite image to emerge from the 2022-2023 NBA season — barring this crew of failures all being stuck in the 9 through 12 spot by season’s end — we see one portion of a standing mix that makes official the clown car nature of this campaign. Normally, you’d expect the next six months of play to gradually even out the results: Veteran teams like the Sixers, Nets, and Heat should rise through talent and coaching, younger upstarts like the Pacers, Cavs, and... Wizards (???) should slide backwards.

But... what if they don’t? I can’t really speak to the Wizards roster and have no definite interest in even pulling it up to double-check whether they can sustain a .588 winning percentage, but Indiana and Cleveland look set to be dangerous throughout the entire year. Heck, what’s made watching non-Bucks games enjoyable this past month has been the sense of competitive equality between most teams. I count no fewer than 24 teams that, as of now, have hopes to be competitive right now. Some will do it better than others, but outside of the Sick Six of the Thunder, Spurs, Rockets, Magic, Hornets, and Pistons, nobody has jumped into a full-out tank.

Tiers will inevitably emerge, and those teams that sit in spots 9 through 12 might wonder whether slightly better draft odds would’ve been the better bet. That’s for the future, though. For now, we get to benefit from the chaos.

Follow along in the comments below, always keep in mind our community guidelines, and hopefully I’ll remember to pin this thread to the homepage tomorrow morning!