The Boston Celtics are both the defending NBA champions and the favorites to repeat. Everyone else is measuring themselves against Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and the breadth of two-way talent in Boston, especially the Eastern Conference, whose best challenger fell 14 games shy of them in the regular season.
Nobody pushed the Celtics beyond five games in a playoff series. Theirs was a dominant postseason run.
It was also a fortunate one, paved by injuries to stars in New York, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Indiana, Cleveland and Miami. Even at full strength, every team in the East recognized it had a canyon to close on Boston. Some of them tried to narrow the divide. Others failed. Let us power rank who came closest …
The Heat’s inclusion on this list is a courtesy to their culture. On talent alone they do not belong here.
Bam Adebayo is tremendous. He signed a three-year, $165.4 million maximum extension this summer, and he is worth it. He might be the NBA’s best defender. He adds 20 points a night and passes as well as any big not named Nikola Jokić. He is also the only player on the roster who does not end in a question mark.
Jimmy Butler is great, too. He did not receive his max extension this summer and some bitterness could linger as a result. He has not played more than 65 games in a season since the 2016-17 campaign, missing the Heat’s entire first-round playoff loss to Boston, and he turns 35 years old in September. To count on him to carry them to a third NBA Finals in five years is a prayer. Otherwise he would have his contract.
Miami’s roster is not as strong as it once was. After losing Max Strus and Gabe Vincent to free agency last summer, the Heat watched Caleb Martin leave for the Philadelphia 76ers. Martin, you might recall, was instrumental in Miami’s victory against Boston in 2023, nearly winning conference finals MVP honors. The loss of his 10 points per game may not seem like much, but the collective loss of that core has to be felt.
In their place are Jaime Jaquez and Nikola Jović, a pair of forwards with considerable potential. They are Miami’s latest hope for a star turn. To ask so much from inexperience is another prayer. Besides, even if Jaquez and Jović were to emerge, there are limitations to what the Heat will expect from their backcourt. Terry Rozier, Tyler Herro and Alec Burks are solid NBA players — none of whom inspire title aspirations.
Miami could optimize its roster, which head coach Erik Spoelstra will almost certainly do, and still be a player or two short of Boston’s talent. The Heat’s grit can only close that gap so much and not enough.
The Magic are equipped to challenge the Celtics — in several years. Franz Wagner received his maximum rookie-scale contract extension this summer, and Paolo Banchero will get his next year. Whether or not Orlando ever rises to Boston’s level depends on their ability to meet or exceed the value of those deals.
It will not happen this season, taking nothing away from their talent. Banchero is a 6-foot-10, 250-pound playmaking forward, and Wagner is the same but 25 pounds lighter. Theirs is a response to Tatum and Brown with which 90% of the league would switch. They are also only 21 and 22 years old, respectively. They need to shoot and augment each other better. These things take time. Just ask Tatum and Brown.
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The Magic weaponized a roster around Banchero and Wagner. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Jalen Suggs arguably make Orlando’s the best defensive backcourt in the NBA, besides Boston’s Jrue Holiday and Derrick White. Suggs and the newly arrived Caldwell-Pope shot 40% on 9.2 3-point attempts per game last season. They are made to complement two superstars if ever Banchero and Wagner become them.
Orlando is flush at center, too. Jonathan Isaac could be the Defensive Player of the Year if only his health would allow it. He was limited to 16 reserve minutes a night last season. Wendell Carter, Moe Wagner and Goga Bitadze round out an intriguing roster of bigs. Take note of an opportunity for consolidation there.
As they stand, the Magic rated third on defense last season — behind Minnesota and Boston — a rarity for so young a team. Credit head coach Jamahl Mosley, who shepherded that transformation in his first year at the helm. Who is to say he cannot do the same for Orlando’s offense, expediting a title contender.
The Pacers are fresh off an appearance in the Eastern Conference finals, where they were swept in Tyrese Haliburton’s absence. He will be back and presumably better, hopefully healed from a hamstring strain. He was in line for an All-NBA First Team nod prior to the injury, averaging 24.2 points (on 50/40/87 shooting splits) and 12.7 assists per game, but fortunate to land on the All-NBA Third Team afterward.
Haliburton lifts all boats on offense, and he is flush with vessels. Pascal Siakam signed a max contract in Indiana, where they rarely boast a pair of All-NBA talents. Myles Turner is a foundational center. Andrew Nembhard showed promise in the playoffs, and Bennedict Mathurin will be back from injury to compete with him for minutes on the wing. Obi Toppin, who also signed a lucrative extension, and Aaron Nesmith are athletic running mates. T.J. McConnell is a pest. More recent first-round picks wait in the wings.
This is a deep and young team in need of collective development. At last season’s end, Haliburton was not a primary option on a serious contender. Nor was Siakam (any longer) a No. 2 option on a title team. The rest of the roster certainly was not ready to win a championship. Could that all change come 2025?
It will depend entirely on Indiana’s defense. The offense is incredible. The Pacers’ 120.5 points per 100 possessions last season ranked second in NBA history — behind Boston. The defense is abominable, allowing 117.6 points per 100 possessions (24th) in the regular season and more in the playoffs. Their path to contention depends on defensive improvement from every young player on the roster all at once.
That or their continued pursuit of a third star. The Pacers have plenty of young talent and some draft assets left to target a complementary third star fo Haliburton and Siakam. Who, exactly, is the question. It is not so simple to find someone who will commit to Indiana long term, even if Haliburton is part of the sell. Could the Pacers enter the Lauri Markkanen sweepstakes? That type of long shot at another star — and a title — is there.
The Cavaliers did what I did not think they could when they traded Markkanen, Collin Sexton and the rights to six first-round draft picks for Donovan Mitchell in September 2022: They re-signed Mitchell to a three-year, $150.3 million extension. He is a great player — a bona fide MVP candidate if not for injuries. He averaged a 32-6-5 through the first three games of the Eastern Conference semifinals, threatening to even Cleveland’s series against the Celtics, before a strained left calf ended his (and his team’s) season.
The Cavaliers were also without Jarrett Allen for the entire playoffs. Whether either injury would have swung their series against Boston is a serious question. The redundancies between Mitchell and Darius Garland in the backcourt and Allen and Evan Mobley in the frontcourt are a real problem. There is a limit to what you can do with two undersized guards on defense and a pair of non-shooting bigs on offense.
New head coach Kenny Atkinson will stretch those limits. In his last full season with the Brooklyn Nets, he led Allen, Caris LeVert and company to the playoffs. They are now role players on this more talented Cleveland team. The Cavs will compete, but there is a difference between competition and contention.
How quickly they pivot from rerunning with their redundancies will dictate the height of their ceiling. Garland and Allen would get them in the door on any conversation about wings changing hands. Those names range from Dorian Finney-Smith to Keldon Johnson, Jonathan Kuminga, Kyle Kuzma, Jerami Grant and Brandon Ingram, among others. Could the Cavaliers score two of those guys on the trade market?
Cleveland is nothing if it cannot contain Tatum and Brown, and right now they have nobody to do it. Strus can only do so much. Everything else depends on Mobley’s development. He has demonstrated defensive dominance and only flashes of brilliance on offense. Should the quiet 23-year-old transform into Kevin Garnett overnight, the Cavaliers will be a contender. Otherwise they need a reconfiguration.
The case for them is simple: Giannis Antetokounmpo is awesome. He is among the few players who can command a playoff series on his own. To navigate four series takes a good team around him; he has one.
Damian Lillard, Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez are good players, great in their primes. On which side of that coin does each drop? By head coach Doc Rivers’ own admission, Lillard arrived in Milwaukee out of shape last season. He and the mother of his three children were divorcing. There are reasons he lost his superstar status last season. The Bucks better hope one of them is not his age. He turned 34 this week.
The same can be said of Middleton and Lopez, who will respectively enter this season at ages 33 and 36. Milwaukee won its championship in 2021. Middleton sprained his left MCL in the 2022 playoffs. Surgeries on his left wrist and right knee sandwiched his 2022-23 campaign. He eased into last season, sprained his left ankle midway through the year and his right ankle in the playoffs. Both required surgery this summer.
Lopez might sink a couple 3-pointers per game until he is 40 years old, but how much longer can Milwaukee bank on him as the anchor of an elite defense? He was the runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year on the league’s fourth-rated defense in 2023. He did not receive a single vote last season, when the Bucks rated 19th on defense. Losing Jrue Holiday cannot be the sole reason for Milwaukee’s slippage.
The vibes were awful last season, when the Bucks fired first-year head coach Adrian Griffin three months into his tenure, and a full season under Rivers might correct their course. The pick-and-roll combination of Antetokounmpo and Lillard should be devastating. It was not last season. No more ill-preparedness on either end of the floor. Rivers has been around long enough to know what works in the regular season.
Does he have the roster to maintain his operation in the playoffs? The Bucks have lost consecutive first-round series, the latest without Antetokounmpo. His health is paramount. They need bounce-back seasons from Lillard, Middleton and Lopez, and they need something from someone else. It would be nice if one of their recent draft picks could give them anything. They will mask those shortcomings with veterans, adding Gary Trent Jr., Delon Wright and Taurean Prince to Bobby Portis and Pat Connaughton.
Do not discount these Bucks. Their leaders know what it takes to win a title. They will also know when they do not have it. They have it now, when everyone is rested and rehabbed. Will they have it in April? There are a lot of questions around Antetokounmpo to answer in the meantime, when age and injuries and the holes that both leave in a thin rotation threaten to make a trend of Milwaukee’s playoff foibles.
2. Philadelphia 76ers
The 76ers’ woes filled a chasm between Philadelphia and Boston last season. Joel Embiid’s health. Tyrese Maxey’s maturation. A gaping hole on the wing. All three should be improved at regular season’s start.
Everything flows from Embiid. He was the favorite to repeat as MVP when he tore his left meniscus last season. He is a 7-foot, 280-pound force who leans on teams until they fold. Or he does. His list of serious injuries is mounting. He turned 30 years old in March. The likelihood he finishes a playoff run feels farther fetched each season, and we are 10 deep now. He has averaged 43 games per year for a career.
Even when healthy, Embiid has succumbed to conditioning in fourth quarters of must-win playoff games. Maybe one of these years he outlasts them all. They fold before he does. The forever plan in Philadelphia. Find Embiid the horses to lighten his workload along the way in case he is there to meet them at the end.
Last season that responsibility lied with Maxey, a 23-year-old rising star. He is a wildly efficient scorer and an increasingly proficient playmaker. He is not the Most Improved Player for nothing. Several steps still stack between someone’s first All-Star appearance and supplanting a Celtics team that has seen six conference finals in the past eight years. Maxey could climb one of those steps on defense this season.
The next conference finals would be the first for Embiid and Maxey. It would not be for Paul George, the 76ers’ max-contracted addition on the wing. He led the Los Angeles Clippers to their first-ever Western Conference finals in 2021. Theoretically, his two-way dynamism fits between Philadelphia’s existing stars to form a well-balanced Big Three. He, too, comes with injury concerns. In five years for the Clippers, he averaged 53 games per season. His 74 games last season were the most he has played since 2018-19.
Your depth better be on point if you bank on two injury-plagued aging stars and a precocious third star. The Sixers did well to round a roster riddled by their creation of cap space. They drafted Jared McCain, retained Kelly Oubre Jr., added Andre Drummond and Eric Gordon and snared Caleb Martin from Miami.
This is a good team. A 50-plus-win team, so long as everyone stays healthy. Is it a team equipped to combat the fully operational Celtics? They feel a fourth option short. Not to mention injury concerns.
The Knicks spent their future draft capital to secure Mikal Bridges, pairing him with fellow Villanova Wildcats Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo. Bridges will compound an already undeniable chemistry, or at least that is the hope. It is a decent bet. The Knicks looked poised to reach the Eastern Conference finals and pose the biggest threat to Boston, at least until they lost the war of attrition.
The most important pairing, though, may be Bridges’ fit alongside fellow All-Defensive wing OG Anunoby. This was our first indication that teams would be quick this summer to counter the Celtics. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are a problem for anyone, but New York is now armed with a defense to limit damage.
What a starting point Brunson is for these Knicks. He is a monster in a 6-foot-2 frame, footworking his way wherever he wants, and he shoots well from everywhere. They have built a roster to complement him, literally surrounding him with family and friends. His father is an assistant coach. His father’s former agent is the team’s president of basketball operations. His father’s former agent’s son is his agent. His wedding party is his team. The ties run deep, and New York basketball belongs to him for the moment.
So much so that Brunson accepted a considerable discount, signing a three-year, $156.5 million contract extension when a five year, $269 million deal likely would have awaited him in 2025. This will benefit New York’s roster-building finances for the long term. In the short term it delivers a message: He believes in the team’s mission, and what other star has ever said that about the Knicks in the James Dolan era?
Dolan or whoever leaked his communications with the league did his best to inject more drama into the organization, and if I were the Celtics, who put their franchise up for sale, I would not be pleased about publicizing the pitfalls of NBA ownership, though I cannot imagine this having any bearing on the court.
What will matter is New York’s loss of Isaiah Hartenstein and the health of Mitchell Robinson. Its center pool is shallow. Should Kristaps Porziņģis return to form from foot surgery for the Celtics, they will have a considerable advantage in the middle. Even a 39-year-old Al Horford may represent an edge for Boston.
For that matter, at what position besides point guard are the Knicks better?
The Knicks have one move left in them: What to do with Julius Randle. He is owed $28.9 million this season and holds a $30.9 million option for the 2025-26 campaign. He has made two All-NBA rosters and three All-Star appearances in the past four years. That list of players is not long. Yet it feels as though he does not fit these new-fangled Knicks. Randle is too ball dominant, too apt to disrupt in the playoffs.
Could they turn him and their remaining draft capital into another valuable piece? A center. A dynamic, creative reserve. There is a roadmap to draw even closer to Boston, even if there is still some ways to go.
