It appears the NBA is attempting to get me more invested in the regular season once again after the entertaining postseason they had. Last year, I commended the Warriors for winning another championship¹ after the collapse of their Hamptons Five lineup; this year, I must commend the Nuggets for remaining healthy in the playoffs and gelling as a unit to go on a well-earned championship run. The Nuggets’ five-game victory in the NBA Finals marks 2022-23 as the fifth consecutive NBA season crowning a different team as champion. The off-season has already added further intrigue to ever-unfurling storylines, however.

The Miami Heat continue to impress me with their overperformance this postseason; as I’ve stated² since 2019, Butler needs additional help to win that elusive championship this team has been so close to obtaining the past four seasons. The yearly Damian Lillard trade rumors have subsided³, but that truly benefits no one, as the Trail Blazers will be going through the beginning stages of an attempted expedited rebuild as the Heat waste another season of Jimmy Butler’s career. I give the Heat tremendous credit for upsetting the one-seed Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference First Round; while Giannis was dealing with an injury sustained during that series, Butler averaged 37.6 points per game while shooting 59.7% from the field and 44.4% from the three-point line. After going up 3-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals, it seemed all but sure that the Heat would firmly supplant themselves as the unquestionable best team in the East; however, the Celtics won three straight and forced a Game 7, ultimately losing, but displaying for the world and the awaiting eventual champion Denver Nuggets that the Heat did have flaws. The Nuggets finally remained healthy for a postseason run, proving Jokić’s selfless leadership could lead a team to a championship, overcoming the Heat in five games in the Finals, outscoring them on average by 8.2 points per game and outshooting them from the field; 49.6% compared to 40.7%.

The Celtics already traded Marcus Smart to the Grizzlies in a three-team trade that saw them receive Kristaps Porziņģis from the Wizards⁴, doubling down on the futures of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. While Butler will be turning 34 before the start of the 2023-24 season, Brown will be turning 27 right as it starts, while Tatum won’t turn 26 until March. Sure, Adebayo turns 26 in 24 days, and while he averaged 21.8 points per game in the Finals, more than Butler by 0.2, and 12 rebounds per game, he’s not enough for this team to overcome offensive issues or inconsistencies. The Celtics acquired Malcolm Brogdon last season after losing in the Finals; this Porziņģis trade is them yet again making moves to secure that record-breaking 18th championship.

I did bet on the future of the Bucks over the Celtics last year, with the Heat as the third-wheel in this scenario; while I may have overstated the gap between the Bucks and the Heat, I do believe the Bucks still have a better long-term future than the Heat. The Bucks have many hurdles to leap this offseason, as Khris Middleton declined his $40 million player option⁵, freeing up a small amount of cap space but at no real benefit to the team. Depending on how the new head coach adjusts to whatever comes from this ensuing free agency period, and as long as Giannis remains on the team and remains healthy, they can once again overcome the Heat in the postseason as they did in the 2020-21 season. Despite Giannis playing in only 63.5 games a season on average in the last four seasons, he still made the All-NBA first team all four times and the All-Defensive first team three times; however, Butler has only played in 58 games on average the last four seasons. While he does have big moments in the playoffs, Giannis is the one who scored 50 points in a series-clinching victory in the 2021 NBA Finals, while Butler is now 0-2 in the NBA Finals the last four years.

It is a blunder on Giannis’ part that the number-one-seeded Milwaukee Bucks, not just in the Eastern Conference but the entire NBA, fell to the eighth-seeded Miami Heat, who became the eighth-seed due to their loss to the Atlanta Hawks in their initial play-in game. While he returned for 38 and 42 minutes in Games 4 and 5 in the First Round, he only played ten healthy minutes before getting injured and missing Games 2 and 3; fully healthy, that series might end differently. Ironically, the man who won Finals MVP the season after winning two consecutive MVP awards has now lost ground as the best player in the NBA to the man who just won Finals MVP the season after winning two consecutive MVP awards. We may never see a Denver-Milwaukee Finals matchup, but if the Bucks can retool their lineup and financial situation, I believe there’s a chance we can still see one in the next few seasons. Boston is already retooling, though, and Miami is likely looking to do everything possible to acquire Lillard; Milwaukee has to act fast before they lose further ground to these two franchises.

It’ll be interesting to see if other teams in the East can break this three-way dance between the Celtics, Heat, and Bucks. The 76ers proved incapable of advancing past the Semifinals; the Cavaliers and Knicks are well-rounded teams, but they’re not title contenders, at least not yet, but the rest of the Eastern Conference is rather uninspiring. It’s out West where things get interesting; while the Eastern Conference is in a three-team gridlock, the Western Conference had its fourth different representative in the Finals in that timespan. The Sacramento Kings just broke a 16-year playoff drought, ultimately losing a hard-fought seven-game series against the defending champion Golden State Warriors in the First Round; the Grizzlies were the second seed for the second year in a row, the Suns pulled the trigger on a trade I had been waiting to see seven months before it happened and still took the Nuggets farther than every other team in the postseason after sacrificing their depth and future picks to get Kevin Durant. The Lakers proved that even at 38 years old, LeBron can still take a team with another star player and capable shooters on a deep playoff run, and that’s with him only playing in 56 games on average the last four seasons as well. The Clippers returned to the postseason while the Mavericks traded their depth for Kyrie Irving and missed out on the playoffs with a 38-44 record; the Pelicans missed the playoffs with a 42-40 record after losing their play-in game to the 40-42 Thunder, who then got blown out 120-95 to the perpetual first round exit Timberwolves in the determining play-in game. The Suns made another blockbuster trade⁶, sending Chris Paul to the Wizards to acquire Bradley Beal, while the Warriors’ seven-game Semifinals loss to the Lakers made them trade Jordan Poole to the Wizards for Paul shortly after⁷; it’ll be much more intriguing to see who steps up to challenge the Nuggets next season, as long as Denver continues to stay healthy come playoff time.

That’s the caveat of the decade, as the injured Nuggets of the previous two postseasons failed to reach the Finals. Jamal Murray proved himself essential during the playoffs, Aaron Gordon, who was not on the team when I wrote my article⁸ on the Nuggets back in 2018, has grown comfortable in his role on the Nuggets, and Michael Porter Jr. did grow into the tall and lengthy scoring forward that this franchise was hoping he’d turn into when they drafted him. After trading away Will Barton and Monte Morris for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, going all-in on their height and length, this team signed Bruce Bowen to a multi-year deal, made him their sixth man, and essentially left everything else the same. They found their pace, as they slowed their pace back down from 19th in the NBA in 2021-22 to 23rd this past season, closer to but still slightly faster than their 29th and 27th ranked pace in 2019-20 and 2020-21, respectively, while their defensive rating remained 15th in the league, their slow pace kept opponent points per game to 112.5, 8th in the NBA. While I did criticize Jokić’s defense before the 2018-19 season, he has grown into a crafty defender, finishing 10th and 2nd in defensive win shares and 12th and 7th in defensive rating the previous two seasons, keeping this team’s defense around league-average while ensuring his team finished top-five in offensive rating for the first time during his tenure there. Now that this team knows what they’re capable of, it’ll be interesting to see them try to defend their title next season; the parity I claimed was on the horizon before the Hamptons Five collapsed⁹ is in full swing; let’s see what happens from here.

Editor’s Notes

1. Havarti – 7/9/2022 – Better Late Than Never
2. Havarti – 8/2/2019 – Seismic Revisions
3. Sports Illustrated – 6/19/2023 – Damian Lillard Wants to Remain With Blazers as Trade Rumors Swirl, per Report
4. NBA.com/Wayback Machine – 6/22/2023 – Kristaps Porzingis to Celtics, Marcus Smart to Grizzlies in 3-team deal
5. The Athletic – 6/22/2023 – Bucks’ Khris Middleton declines $40.4 million player option, per sources: What this means for Milwaukee
6. CBS Sports – 6/19/2023 – Bradley Beal trade grades: Suns go all-in (again); Wizards start rebuild in brutal fashion
7. ESPN – 6/22/2023 – Sources: Wizards to send Chris Paul to Warriors for Jordan Poole
8. Havarti – 9/10/2018 – Denver’s Specious Goldmine?
9. Havarti – 7/23/2018 – LeBron’s Lakers