Three NBA Teams Poised to Shock the League This Season

Short of a key injury – the loss of Fred VanVleet is a killer for the Rockets – and endless speculation – no, Jayson Tatum isn’t “super-human,” as one national broadcaster suggested the other night – it takes Caitlin Clark-type vision to glean much of anything from the NBA preseason.

Fortunately, with these new binoculars, I can see the court with the best of them.

And what I’ve seen this preseason – in small doses, mind you – is three teams who are going to surprise a lot of people this year.

That’s not necessarily good news for mainstream basketball fans, who have come to despise two of these franchises in recent years and who think the third team resides in Maine.

Let’s examine …

Boston Celtics

It took the new-look club all of about 11 minutes to answer one of the biggest questions of the preseason: Will the Celtics be demoralized by the absence of Tatum^[1]?

When Jaylen Brown commanded the basketball – previously unallowed with Tatum on the floor – and poured in 15 points in a 33-22 season-opening flurry, the answer was clear: Are you joking? These guys will be inspired by it.

Especially Brown, who has lived uncomfortably in Tatum’s huge shadow for the last eight seasons.

Brown clearly enjoyed his first experience with the shackles off. He was the driving force in a pass-happy, quick-striking Celtics attack that will – for a while anyway – replace the dribble-dominated Tatum snooze-fest.

It’s already clear the Celtics will be more of a team this season. Sure, one without Jrue Holiday, Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis, but they also have retained a high-scoring complement to Brown in Derrick White and a real point guard in Payton Pritchard. And get this: They actually will station big men near the hoop and employ a difference-making defensive stopper now that Jordan Walsh will get a shot.

Boston is tabbed to be barely a .500 team this season, but that’s clearly the projection of someone caught up in the Tatum headlines and thinking he might return by Thanksgiving.

The longer he’s out, the more likely a 50-win season becomes.

Golden State Warriors

When the Warriors took the court for the first time this month, it was against a Lakers team that had LeBron James and Luka Doncic on the sidelines. Inspired by simply seeing “Lakers” on the jersey, Golden State responded with an early 24-15 message.

You see, while the Warriors were being ridiculed for their handling of the Jonathan Kuminga debacle^[2] and the Lakers were being applauded for not forcing Dodger Dogs upon Doncic, Golden State quietly went out and made one of the off-season’s biggest additions in Horford, a glue piece in the Celtics’ recent success.

In San Francisco, he will join Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler III to give the Warriors – get this – one of the best front-court defenses in the NBA. Surely, James and Doncic noticed from their front-row seats.

The talk in the West this off-season has focused on the Thunder’s likelihood of repeating, the Nuggets’ improved depth that puts Nikola Jokic back in the championship hunt, the addition of Kevin Durant to the ready-for-prime-time Rockets and, of course, the subtraction of Doncic at the scale.

Dallas has a difference-making rookie, San Antonio is ready to unleash arguably the best player in the league, the Clippers have Kawhi Leonard (or do they?) … and let’s not forget about the Timberwolves.

So where do the Stephen Curry-led Warriors fall? With Butler ready to tackle Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Horford and Green prepared to double-team Jokic, suffice it to say: The goal in Oklahoma City and Denver this season should be to avoid the Warriors in the Western semifinals.

Because the Warriors, a Curry injury away from the Western Final Four with a lesser team a year ago, are going to be there.

Portland Trail Blazers

A funny thing happened when the Trail Blazers debuted last week … four Chauncey Billups clones were introduced with the starting lineup. Such is the athleticism of Holiday, Shaedon Sharpe, Toumani Camara and Jerami Grant, all who clearly have done their homework on the style of play that made their coach a five-time All-Star who rode defense to his Hall of Fame enshrinement.

While nobody noticed, the Trail Blazers were one of the NBA’s most improved teams last season, going from 21 to 36 wins in Billups’ fourth season at the helm.

Throw in Scoot Henderson, now mentored by Damian Lillard^[3], and Deni Avdija and you have the makings of 48 minutes of the best perimeter defense in the NBA. And behind that, few teams offer bigger rim-protecting obstacles than Donovan Clingan and Yang Hansen.

Keep an eye on Sharpe, who the Trail Blazers shrewdly retained in the Holiday trade (dealing Anfernee Simons instead). Having improved from 9.9 points per game to 15.9 and then 18.5 in his three seasons, he’s the NBA’s next 20-point guard and a likely first-time All-Star.

Unfortunately, this Portland is in Oregon, not Maine, where the Trail Blazers would qualify to be a top-six team in the East. Even in the West, where they were 12th last season, it would be no surprise if they passed the Suns and Kings and got a play-in reward this April.