2024-25 NBA Season Kickoff: Predicting the Season's 5 Biggest X-Factors
Luka Dončic, Jayson Tatum, Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and others of their superstar ilk will have maximum influence on the 2024-25 NBA season and title race. But we know the championship won't be decided solely by the success or failure of the established elites.
X-factors always swing the results. Think of Jaylen Brown ascending to win Finals MVP in 2024, Jamal Murray handing out 50 assists in five 2023 Finals contests or Andrew Wiggins inexplicably becoming the Golden State Warriors' second-best player during their 2022 championship run.
It's not just the Finals where X-factors shine. They can also shape entire seasons, determine seeding and alter the dynamics of their teams across several months.
Who's going to have that kind of influence this year?
We're looking for the sweet spot between massive potential impact and legitimate uncertainty. It's not easy to isolate many players who occupy the center sliver in that Venn diagram, but we've found a handful who fit the bill.
Kristaps Porzingis, Boston Celtics
1 of 5
Nobody should be in a hurry to displace the Boston Celtics from their perch atop the league's list of title favorites, but we should at least acknowledge their position is precarious.
It depends on Kristaps Porziņģis' health.
Now, you might point out that Boston won the whole thing last year (rather handily, in fact) while getting seven total postseason appearances out of the floor-stretching, shot-blocking big man. Why couldn't the Celtics do the same thing again?
Maybe they can, but there's no question it'll be much harder without Porziņģis, whose 37.5 percent shooting from deep, 1.9 blocks per game and scheme-wrecking skill as a post-up threat against switches gave the Celtics dimensions they couldn't get anywhere else.
With rising threats in the West—Oklahoma City, Minnesota, Dallas—and a rebuilt set of contenders in the East led by the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers, Boston is going to need all of its weapons.
Porziņģis is expected to return sometime around the New Year, completing a roughly six-month rehab process following surgery to repair a torn retinaculum and dislocated posterior tibialis tendon in his left leg. That will only mark the beginning of a careful ramp-up process from a Boston squad that knows his health will matter most in April, May and June.
How close to full strength will KP be upon retaking the floor? What will his workload look like? Can Boston be sure he'll be 100 percent by the postseason?
A second straight championship depends on the answers to those questions.
Klay Thompson, Dallas Mavericks
2 of 5
Klay Thompson's last season with the Golden State Warriors was emotionally fraught for several reasons, not the least of which being his ability to summon vintage moments in the midst of an otherwise difficult year.
Those little reminders of what he used to be made it hard for fans (and certainly for Thompson himself) to give up on the idea that he could resemble that player again.
In reality, the 34-year-old was just enduring the natural process of regression. Great players don't lose their entire games all at once. Instead, they flash their peak form occasionally but can't sustain it as consistently as they used to.
All this will be relevant to the Dallas Mavericks as they embark on their first season with Thompson.
There will be nights when he drains eight or nine threes and delivers on even the most outlandish expectations. There will be others in which he can't find his range, forces shots, can't stay in front of his matchup on D and generally looks washed up.
The ratio good nights to bad nights will offer clues about what Thompson might be able to do in the playoffs, which is the only section of the NBA calendar that truly matters to the Mavs.
If Thompson can be the best version of himself more often than not, it'll force defenses to guard the Mavericks honestly, rather than what happened in the 2024 playoffs, when teams clogged the middle to stop Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving, daring role players to beat them from deep.
If last season's slide accelerates, and if Thompson can't pepper in enough of those throwback heaters amid the duds, Dallas won't be the championship threat it looks like on paper.
Mikal Bridges, New York Knicks
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At every turn during his six-year career, we've been too quick to decide what kind of player Mikal Bridges is.
First, he was a defensive specialist who could hit the occasional three but contribute little else. During his third year, he was suddenly the premier three-and-D weapon in the league, a reputation he solidified by finishing second in Defensive Player of the Year voting for a 2021-22 Phoenix Suns team that won a league-high 64 games.
But then—plot twist—Bridges looked like a do-it-all wing for a half-season in Brooklyn, one who averaged 26.1 points per game and suddenly seemed capable of playing an alpha role.
Throughout his evolution, the 28-year-old's playmaking has been the exception. Even when we've been wrong about pigeon-holing him over the years, deciding with certainty that he's this or that, it's been much harder to nail down just how good he is as a facilitator.
The fairest way to put it: Bridges has always tantalized with the potential to take on more playmaking duties but never proved he could handle that role regularly.
Well, the New York Knicks need him to solidify this one last uncertainty about his skill set.
The trade that sent out Julius Randle removed the only reliable setup man on the roster not named Jalen Brunson, so some portion—maybe a significant one—of the Knicks' playmaking will have to fall to Bridges. The alternative, running Brunson into the ground, isn't viable. New York needs him to hold up for the entirety of its possible title run.
Bridges averaged a career-high 3.6 assists per game last season. His ability to beat that number and take some of the load off Brunson will be critical to determining the Knicks' ceiling.
Evan Mobley, Cleveland Cavaliers
4 of 5
Evan Mobley finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting two seasons ago and has developed into a decent enough offensive weapon during his career.
Last year's 62.6 percent true shooting percentage was stellar, but a 20.6 percent usage rate minimized the impact of his efficiency. All in all, he was and is a quality starter. But he needs to become something more than that for the Cleveland Cavaliers to take the next step in 2024-25.
The 23-year-old has shown glimpses of greater offensive breadth. He increased his assist average from 2.5 per game as a rookie to 2.8 in 2022-23 to 3.2 last year. If he continues to grow as a passing hub and takes a more forceful approach to his own scoring, it could lead to All-Star appearances and deeper playoff pushes.
Though an oversimplification, Mobley must also shoot more threes.
New head coach Kenny Atkinson presided over Brook Lopez's transformation nearly a decade ago with the Brooklyn Nets.
Once a post-up center with no range, Lopez had attempted just 31 threes prior to 2016-17. The following year, he shockingly fired off 387 treys and made 34.6 percent of them. He's been one of the NBA's most dangerous floor-spacing bigs ever since.
If Mobley's growth stagnates at his current level, Cleveland will still be a 50-win team. But it'll be difficult to escape second-tier contender status. If he makes a leap, the Cavs could secure the East's top seed and position themselves to reach the Finals.
Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City Thunder
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The Oklahoma City Thunder have more than one player whose growth could impact the season and championship race, but Chet Holmgren stands out because of the greater number of unknowns surrounding his upcoming season.
To illustrate the contrast, we know Jalen Williams will be great in his second-star role, and we don't really have any questions about his responsibilities with the team. Holmgren, though, has only had a year to show us what he can do, and it's much harder to pin down how, where and with whom he'll play on a retooled and improved OKC roster.
Don't worry, the second-year big man's role isn't in danger of shrinking.
As a rookie, Holmgren was one of three players to block 120 shots and make 120 threes. If not for Victor Wembanyama, the 22-year-old big man might have won Rookie of the Year in a landslide. He finished with 16.5 points 7.9 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 2.3 blocks per game.
Holmgren's playing time should increase from last year's 29.4 minutes per game, but OKC could use him as a lone big, as a spacing 4 next to Isaiah Hartenstein and as either a roll man or a ball-handler in inverted pick-and-roll sets. Maybe Holmgren will crank up his three-point volume, or perhaps he'll turn into a Porzingis-like switch-wrecker in the mid-post. He might even thrive as an isolation attacker against bigs who lack the foot speed to stick with him.
A 7-footer who can stretch the defense and protect the rim is uncommon enough. But Holmgren is already more than that and still growing. Last year, he went from coughing the ball up on drives all the time to excelling as a driver in traffic. What in-season leaps are in store this year?
Oklahoma City has a potentially transformative cornerstone in Holmgren. The various ways in which he could advance toward superstardom will shape the entire season.
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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