ATLANTA HAWKS: JOCK LANDALE
The Hawks have gotten arguably deeper but failed to address their biggest issue, which is lack of size. There's only one pure C - Jock Landale - on the entire roster. Behind him is a rookie named Henri Veesaar, who's already out for the season basically.
Okongwu is slated to once again start, and whereas he may be a promising player, he can't stand alone against a frontline like the Knicks' for instance. So the onus has fallen on Landale, who isn't the worst C in the world but obviously has injury issues.
After showing progress last season, it's hard to get excited about Atlanta, considering that a number of competitors have gotten bigger, while they continue to play musical chairs.
CHARLOTTE HORNETS: COBY WHITE
The Hornets have done pretty good for themselves, in that four of their expected five starters (Reid, Knueppel, Miller and Diabaté) are two-positional. But I don't think any of those guys would ideally play point.
Schröder
has the prettiest game in professional basketball. When he cuts down a
defense, it's almost like watching ballet. But he's too good to be a role
player and in a way, too good to be a starter also. He deserves to have
a team built around him, but at the same time he doesn't. So we know
what we're going to get out of Schröder and can't realistically expect
him to change now, as one of the greatest international players in
history. So it'd be better to just give him the keys to the second
unit, though again, he can start also.
So the next man in question is Coby White. His role is also unpredictable in that, you can't rationalize putting the onus on hi, with the same kind of liberty he enjoyed in Chicago. So he's gonna have to focus more on distribution than scoring. He's going to have to play more like a traditional, level-headed PG, instead of a product of the 2020s, to maximize this roster.
MIAMI HEAT: PELLE LARSSON
The Heat's frontcourt is set, and yes, it does appear wembyproof - at least as big, on average, as what the Knicks rolled out last season. Both Giannis and Bam are basically really-tall wings.
The backcourt, however... and it's funny how this team sorta mimics the Heat from the 1990s. They too, at least for a time, were focused upfront though reliant on a formidable backcourt. And that's the key word - formidability, because nobody back there is a takeover-a-game type of player, unless you're banking on a resurgence of Klay, which I'm not.
The G who is slated or most needed to step up is Pelle Larsson. I know that yeah, everyone needs to step up, but I mean like the one who can catch defenses most off guard, sorta like Jacquez did. We already know what Mitchell and Thompson and Hardaway - the latter of whom also needs to have a really good season - are bringing to the table. So that makes Larsson, out of the lot of them, the x-factor.
The said, it appears that Mitchell is the only actual PG on this squad, meaning that he's going to have to shoulder a lot also and should prolly be dubbed the x-factor. Oh well. Like I said, there's a lot of pressure on Miami's backcourt, unless they intend to rollout lineups with like four bigs.
ORLANDO MAGIC: FRANZ WAGNER
It's been a long time since the Magic, at least imo, rolled out an enviable roster - and when I say long time, I mean 30 years type shit. Yet they did make the Finals in the late-aughts. And if given the right pieces, these guys like outplay their talent.
In other words, they can use
help across the board. Neither the frontcourt nor backcourt are
anything to write home about in terms of depth (though the back is even
thinner).
So the x-factor has to be Franz Wagner. Again, if he were around versus the Pistons, I doubt Detroit would have won.
I don't want these posts to be about expecting established vets to suddenly move up a class, you know, go from a B-list statline to A-list. It's more realistic to be like 'okay, we already have the pieces, now let's keep them healthy'. That's more of the issue with the Magic. We can't know if the Bane experiment was truly a good move if the core players can't even make it through a series together.
WASHINGTON WIZARDS: TRE MANN
Not many shortcomings here, folks. Even if some key dude does get hurt, like they literally have a backup for everybody. This team is half-vet/half-youngster like no other in the NBA, and no individual player should be under any tremendous amount of pressure.
If this were 20 years ago, maybe we could say that too much talent is concentrated at the 5. But presently, in the small ball era, if you have a big C (of which Washington has three!), virtually any other tall dude on the roster can play the 4.
Where things are a little more shaky is in terms of pure point. We already know what Tre can do -Young, not to be mistaken with Mann - so the latter is more of the x-factor. He probably isn't going to be called upon to shoot at lot, but when he does needs to make his shots.
If the scouting report says something like 'oh sh*t, we have
to keep an eye out for Tre Mann', then by that point, it'd be hard for
any team to take advantage of the Wizards. The NBA truly is becoming
positionless, in that there's a number of teams now when a 1 would be
better served acting as a 2. Someone like Coby White may need to focus
more on passing, but the same is not true if he were on a roster like this.