Every offseason Tim Bontemps polls a collection of NBA coaches, scouts and executives on a variety of topics. This time he collected 18 entries, so the results are far from universal, but they do give a good cross-section of the league vibes. (Side note: I wonder if anyone is tracking how accurate these things are after the end of the season.)
I find these polls to be interesting across the board, but I admit to having a Boston Celtics bias, so let’s focus on the results related to the NBA Champs.
Who had the NBA’s best offseason?
Most voters went with the 76ers or the Knicks, but the Celtics actually got 2 votes in this category. Boston did re-sign or extend just about all their free agents and extension eligible players (some on bargain deals). Sure they locked in a huge tax bill, but that’s price of having the best roster in the league.
The Sixers certainly grabbed the spotlight by nabbing the best free agent of the offseason. Given Paul George’s age and injury history, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for that contract to look more like a liability than an asset. Still, they have a short window to compete with Joel Embiid and they got him the best teammate he’s ever played with.
The Knicks made their own headlines by opening a NYC Villanova Alumni Association chapter in their stadium. Of course the cost of those moves was losing standout center Isaiah Hartenstein to the Thunder (more on them soon).
Who is the NBA’s best player right now?
Who will be the NBA’s best player in five years?
Who will be the 2024-25 NBA MVP?
I’m grouping these all together because they are all kind of different ways of asking the same general question. Neither Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown received any votes for the first two categories but Tatum did get 2 MVP votes.
Jokic got far and away the most votes for best player with 15. Victor Wembanyama got 12 of the votes for best player in 5 years. Both are very logical choices and nobody else got any more than 2 votes. It would be very hard to make a case for Tatum being better than Jokic right now and all signs point to Wemby taking over the league sooner rather than later. So I don’t put too much stock into Tatum not showing up in either list.
The MVP race could be interesting. SGA got 7 votes, Doncic got 5, then 3 players tied with 2 each (Tatum, Anthony Edwards, and Jokic). Side note: No Giannis???
From Bontemps:
Tatum picked up votes on the strength of Boston’s title and the expectation he will continue to be the best player on the league’s best team, while those picking Jokic are voting for a historic MVP run. A fourth award in five seasons would move him into an extremely exclusive group — only LeBron James and Bill Russell have done it.
Tatum has done everything he can to earn the respect of voters and fans, including doing the one major thing they said he couldn’t by winning the NBA title. Nobody can take that away from him and he deserves every victory lap he takes. Still, it seems like there’s still more he has to prove to the league before he’ll be considered Most Valuable.
This probably deserves its own column, but it is interesting that Tatum can’t seem to “win” here. He’s proven before that he can put up huge stats for a contending team; but he got knocked for not winning it all. Then he does the right thing by sacrificing stats to put his team over the top to win the title; then he gets knocked for not being dominant every night.
I can see a path to Tatum winning MVP. The Celtics already have the shine of being the defending champs. They’ll be without Porzingis for a good portion of the season, so perhaps Jayson will be leaned on more heavily. He also carries a heavy playmaking load when teams are forcing the ball out of his hands. If he can just hit a higher percentage of his 3 pointers, he could bump up his scoring while maintaining all the other good things he does on the court (rebounding, defending, making the right next play, etc.).
Then again, voters are fickle folks and who knows what narrative they’ll gravitate to this coming season?
Which team will win each conference in 2024-25?
The Celtics got 13 of the 18 votes. Nobody else got more than 2. Just about everyone seems to understand that Boston is the best team in the East. I’m just going to assume that the 5 other voters are haters or biased against the Celtics.
Who will win the 2024-25 NBA title?
The Celtics got 8 votes, beating out the Thunder that got 7 (nobody else got more than one). I know that the Nuggets lost a key performer and Jamal Murray doesn’t look quite right recently, but I’m a bit shocked at how quickly they’ve been written off. Also, I know that the Mavericks represented the West in the Finals, but that seemed a bit flukey to me personally.
I can certainly see the logic behind the Thunder. They tied for the most wins in the West last year and they added key pieces in Caruso and Hartenstein. Plus their younger players are a year older with playoff experience under their belts. They have a deep, hungry, talented team that plays with poise. I could certainly see them coming out of the West and giving the Celtics a run for their money.
Still, …Celtics in 6.
