Sports
6 Teams That Can Really Shock the NBA In 2023-24 – Bleacher Report
Despite one prognosticator’s preseason prediction that the Denver Nuggets would win the 2022-23 championship, their eventual crowning was still a surprise to many.
The final record of the Sacramento Kings probably qualifies as a shocker too.
Every year, it seems that at least one team bucks conventional wisdom and exceeds expectations. Sometimes, that means a title. Other times, it may be a higher-than-anticipated finish in the standings.
The teams that have a chance to do either (or maybe even both) in 2023-24 can be found below.
After a 5-20 start, the Orlando Magic went 29-28 over their last 57 games with a rotation packed with young talent.
In theory, 20-year-old Paolo Banchero, 21-year-old Franz Wagner, 24-year-old Wendell Carter Jr., 25-year-old Markelle Fultz and 22-year-old Jalen Suggs could all be better in 2023-24. Even if only two or three of them are, they should be better than the above-.500 team they were over the last two-thirds of 2022-23.
That means 40-plus wins are in play, and that would put Orlando in contention for a play-in spot.
Climbing much higher than that might require star leaps from Banchero and Wagner, but that’s certainly not out of the question for either.
There are only 13 players in NBA history who matched or exceeded all of Wagner’s career totals for points, rebounds, assists and steals through their first two seasons (and Wagner is second on that list in effective field-goal percentage).
And there are only seven who matched or exceeded Paolo’s rookie totals for the same numbers in their rookie seasons.
In a recent episode of the Run Your Race podcast, former Nuggets guard Bruce Brown said he felt like the Minnesota Timberwolves were their biggest challenge on the way to the title.
And there may be something to that.
Only the Los Angeles Lakers had a better playoff net rating against Denver, but they were of course swept. And the Wolves’ jumbo frontcourt held Nikola Jokić to (by a decent margin) his lowest average game score (“a rough measure of a player’s productivity for a single game”) from any 2023 playoff series.
Now, the bulk of the roster that (at least in Brown’s mind) posed the biggest challenge to the champs is coming back for its second year together. And presumably, Karl-Anthony Towns will be available for more than the 29 games he played in 2022-23.
With a healthy Towns, the still-ascending Anthony Edwards and Mike Conley on the team from the start of the season (he seemed to be the key to unlocking the Utah Jazz version of Rudy Gobert), the Wolves could be on the hunt for home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are loaded with size and playmaking at multiple positions.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is 6’6″, made First Team All-NBA in 2022-23 and has averaged 5.7 assists over the last three years. Josh Giddey is 6’8″ and 20 years old, with a career average of 6.3 assists. And 22-year-old Jalen Williams is 6’6″ and coming off a rookie campaign in which he averaged 4.1 assists from February 1 through the end of the season.
Add a hint of playmaking potential from Chet Holmgren and it’s easy to see the Thunder as one of the most potentially dynamic and unpredictable offenses in the NBA.
If Holmgren lives up to his pre-draft hype as a rim protector too, a playoff berth almost seems like the floor for this team.
Last season, OKC was in a Western Conference play-in game, and like Orlando, much of the roster could (and probably even should) improve ahead of next season.
The New Orleans Pelicans were in first place in the Western Conference during the early portion of 2022-23, and their net rating with Zion Williamson on the floor looked like that of a title contender.
When Zion was on the floor, New Orleans was plus-7.8 points per 100 possessions, compared to minus-0.1 when he was off. And that first number climbs to plus-17.3 when Zion shared the floor with Brandon Ingram.
That duo played just under 500 possessions together, so a small-sample alert may be in order, but the Pelicans could score at will with Williamson’s ability to get to the rim and Ingram’s jump shooting both on display.
And if both are healthy in 2023-24, New Orleans could absolutely compete for a championship.
Of course, that’s a massive if. Zion has played in less than 40 percent of the Pelicans’ regular-season games since he was drafted. And Ingram has averaged fewer than 60 appearances per season for his career.
The Dallas Mavericks were one of 2022-23’s biggest disappointments, and their late-season tank job was so obvious and flagrant that it cost them a $750,000 fine.
This summer, though, they re-signed Kyrie Irving, added one of the best shooters of all time in Seth Curry, signed one of Europe’s most dynamic guards in Dante Exum and essentially replaced Reggie Bullock with Grant Williams.
Add all that to Luka Dončić, and it’s easy to imagine the Mavericks being among the league leaders in the difference of wins between 2022-23 and 2023-24.
Last season, Dallas was plus-4.6 points per 100 possessions (with a 94th-percentile offense) when Dončić and Irving were both on the floor, and they now have a deeper and more versatile supporting cast around them.
That may not be enough to vault them from out of the playoffs to title contention, but Dončić is just over a year removed from a conference finals appearance. And Irving has plenty of postseason heroics of his own.
The Mavs have a chance to be extremely dangerous.
The Philadelphia 76ers’ disappointing performance came a little later than Dallas’.
For the sixth time in six playoff appearances, Joel Embiid was eliminated before the conference finals. And after giving up a 3-2 second-round lead over the Boston Celtics, James Harden issued a trade request.
On paper, the Sixers are in turmoil, and it would be easy to see why anyone would have the Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks or Miami Heat (especially if they land Damian Lillard) higher on the Eastern Conference pecking order.
There’s at least one timeline in which Harden sticks around and the 76ers finally compete for a championship, though.
It would take both stars bucking pretty significant trends of postseason letdowns, but this roster has enough raw talent to win it all.
Last regular season, Philadelphia was plus-9.2 points per 100 possessions when Embiid and Harden were both on the floor, and that number climbs to plus-13.1 when Tyrese Maxey, Tobias Harris and P.J. Tucker join the stars.