NBA Teams Destined To Be Worse In 2023-24
The NBA offseason is all about optimism.
New acquisitions are sure to work out, returning players are guaranteed to rebound from down years and whatever problems arose last season will magically disappear. The best part: It'll be months until any of those naively positive beliefs collide with the reality of actual games.
The truth is there are only a finite number of wins available in any given season, and some teams are bound to have less success than they did a year ago. Decline can stem from a talent drain, injury, natural regression and just plain bad luck. Some teams even intend to trim their win total for rebuilding purposes.
Here, we'll highlight several squads that are in for standings slippage in 2023-24.
Philadelphia 76ers
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James Harden's trade request and the seeming unlikelihood of it producing a talent gain for the Philadelphia 76ers is just one factor suggesting the team is in for a step back.
Even if the Sixers manage to bring in a star-level starter in a package for Harden, that player probably won't be as adept at spoon-feeding reigning MVP Joel Embiid for so many clean scoring opportunities.
For all his faults on defense and playoff disappearances, Harden was an ace pick-and-roll operator. He and Embiid were last season's most prolific PnR tandem, and Harden assisted the big man on more total buckets than any teammate combo in the league. Whoever steps into Harden's role—be it Tyrese Maxey or an outside acquisition—is unlikely to replicate that.
Maybe Embiid will level up by necessity with Harden gone, but the safer bet is probably that he'll regress. Last year's 66 games were the second-most of Embiid's career, and we could see him scale back after yet another postseason marred by a wear-and-tear-related physical breakdown. MVP in hand, Embiid probably won't push so hard during the regular season again.
Patrick Beverley is Philly's only notable offseason addition so far, and the veteran guard won't offset the loss Shake Milton, Georges Niang and Jalen McDaniels.
Finally, the Sixers won 54 games last season with the point differential of a team that should have secured closer to 51 victories. So even if Philadelphia performs roughly as well on a per-possession basis, we should still expect a slightly worse record.
Milwaukee Bucks
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Brook Lopez and Khris Middleton returned on new free-agent deals, helping the Milwaukee Bucks avoid the catastrophic talent drain that would have resulted had either of those two departed. This team will contend if healthy.
That said, the Bucks lost Joe Ingles and Jevon Carter to the Orlando Magic and Chicago Bulls, respectively. The former shot 40.9 percent from deep in 46 games after returning from a torn ACL on Dec. 19, while the latter played an even larger role for last year's 58-win Bucks. Carter appeared in 81 games, starting 39 of them while providing intense defensive pressure and a 42.1 percent three-point hit rate as the most-used backup guard on the team.
Deep into the tax and short on tradable assets, Milwaukee lacks the resources to replace what it lost. Considering the mileage accrued over several recent playoff runs, plus the advancing age of the core—Khris Middleton will be 32 in August, Jrue Holiday is 33 and Brook Lopez is 35—it would be risky to compensate for key losses by leaning harder on the top of the rotation.
After last season's embarrassing first-round upset against the Miami Heat, we should also see Milwaukee de-emphasize the regular season. The top seed matters less if it comes at the cost of fatigue and physical breakdown.
Lastly, the Bucks won a league-high 58 games in 2022-23 but finished with the largest discrepancy between actual and expected victories. Milwaukee's point differential belonged to a team with 51.9 wins, but good fortune in close games added over six extra W's to its total. Other than having something to prove after that ugly first-round ouster, almost every factor points to a step backward for the Bucks in 2023-24.
Washington Wizards
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The Washington Wizards will struggle to match 2022-23's modest 35 wins, but for the first time in too long, that futility will be by design.
Bradley Beal and Kristaps Porziņģis are both gone, casualties of a Wizards team finally pivoting toward a rebuild after years chasing the eighth seed. The only players from last year's roster with All-Star berths on their resumés, they'll take with them Washington's two highest scoring averages.
Jordan Poole will step into Beal's place as the team's offensive engine, and he'll eat up loads of possessions with a high-usage, low-efficiency game. Don't be surprised if Poole puts up close to 30.0 points per contest, but his loose ball-handling and unchecked aggression produced the fourth-most turnovers in the league a year ago. When he ran the offense without Stephen Curry, Golden State slotted into the 30th percentile in scoring efficiency and coughed up the ball on an unfathomable 16.6 percent of its possessions.
In short, Poole will generate just enough highlights to make you forget the Wizards are down by 14 early in the second quarter.
Perhaps the biggest indicator of an imminent Wizards slide is the lack of obvious tankers elsewhere in the league. The Detroit Pistons, Charlotte Hornets, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs finished with the bottom four records in 2022-23, and all of them project to be better due to improved health, added veteran talent and/or the arrival of transformative rookies.
Even if the Wizards wanted a handful of sure wins on the schedule (which they don't), they'll have a hard time finding them.
Brooklyn Nets
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The Brooklyn Nets finished with a 45-37 record last year, but 2022-23 was really a tale of two seasons for a team that blew itself up halfway through.
An opening-night attendance sheet that featured Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, TJ Warren, Markieff Morris and Steve Nash as head coach looked completely different by season's end. Though Brooklyn is in a strong position with Mikal Bridges, Nic Claxton, Cam Johnson, loads of future first-round picks and cleaner books (other than Ben Simmons' remaining two years and $78.2 million), we can't pretend like the current core was responsible for last season's success.
After the Feb. 9 trade deadline, the revamped Nets logged a modest 13-15 record. Their collection of rangy wings produced a defense that ranked right around the league average across those 28 games, but scoring was a struggle. The Nets were just 23rd in offensive efficiency after the deadline.
Bridges' continued growth as a first option and Claxton's status as one of the league's fast-rising big men could help the Nets improve on their sub-.500 closing run. And we can throw every reference to last year out the window on the off chance Brooklyn winds up trading for Damian Lillard.
The smart money is still on the Nets falling short of 45 wins.
Sacramento Kings
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The Sacramento Kings were one of the best stories in the league last season, shaking off roughly two decades of futility to claim the West's No. 3 seed. Their 48 wins were the franchise's highest total since 2004-05, the tail end of the Chris Webber era.
De'Aaron Fox leveled up to All-NBA status, Domantas Sabonis landed on his third All-Star team and new head coach Mike Brown presided over the best offense in the league. All of the principals that drove last year's success are still in place, and players like Keegan Murray, Malik Monk and even Fox are at stages of their careers where improvement should be the expectation.
Despite all that, we're forecasting a worse record in 2023-24 because one aspect that fueled last year's run is totally out of the Kings' control.
They were arguably the healthiest team in the league last season, as the starting five—Fox, Sabonis, Murray, Harrison Barnes and Kevin Huerter—combined to miss just 21 games. Even the reserves were remarkably healthy. Monk played 77 contests, Davion Mitchell logged 80 and Trey Lyles appeared in 74. No one in the top eight in minutes per game missed more than Fox's nine games.
Unless the Kings have cracked the code to preserving player health, their most important pieces are going to miss more time this season than last. Combine that with a Western Conference that seems to get tougher every year, and it's easy to imagine Sacramento losing a handful of wins off of 2022-23's total.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
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