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The NBA season just opened, but these three teams should already be worried.
The NBA’s 82-game regular season is so long and tedious that few teams are ever really out of it until after the All-Star break. Take the 2021-2022 Boston Celtics as the chief example: Boston was just 25-25 through its first 50 games, then finished the year 26-6 before running all the way to the NBA Finals.
The new NBA season has been underway for only a week, but that’s already long enough for a vibe check around the league. The Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder appear poised for a collision course in the 2025 NBA Finals, the Lakers are rolling behind new head coach J.J. Redick, and Cleveland Cavaliers appear to be taking another step forward with new coach Kenny Atkinson.
Some teams haven’t been as impressive so far. Here are five teams that are at least thinking about pushing the panic button only one week into the 2024-2025 season.
Milwaukee Bucks
The Bucks are 1-3, including getting absolutely shellacked by the Chicago Bulls and Brooklyn Nets — two teams more concerned with being in the Cooper Flagg derby than winning games this year. Milwaukee entered the season as one of the league’s most desperate teams: with Damian Lillard, Khris Middleton, and Brook Lopez all getting old, this felt like their last chance to make a run at a championship with this core around Giannis Antetokounmpo. It hasn’t been pretty so far.
The Bucks have a laundry list of problems right now: their depth stinks, their defense is totally disconnected, Middleton is out with an ankle injury, and Lillard isn’t getting back offensively what he’s giving up defensively. It’s easy to blame head coach Doc Rivers, but at a certain point this group wasn’t good enough for Mike Budenholzer or Adrian Griffin, either. It’s a deeply flawed roster that’s completely capped out and devoid of future assets.
Lillard’s defense is a big issue in particular. He’s so small and struggles badly to get over screens, which means he gets taken out of plays with ease. When Dame gets knocked out with a screen, he’s rarely showing multiple efforts to get back in the play, and that’s putting the rest of the Bucks’ defense in rotation.
Lillard’s offense can still be great, but it feels like his deep pull-ups are less consistent than they used to be. For the Bucks to reach their potential, the chemistry between Lillard and Antetokounmpo in the two-man game had to be vastly improved. It was a big red flag the two stars admitted they didn’t workout together this summer. Milwaukee has plenty of time to get right, but it needs to maximize the Lillard-Giannis pairing immediately and do whatever it can to fix the defense.
Denver Nuggets
It was only 15 months ago that the Nuggets won the NBA championship. In the time since, ownership has let several key pieces walk in free agency (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown, Jeff Green), the young players drafted by the front office haven’t developed in a meaningful way, and Jamal Murray looks like he’s lost a step at only 27 years old. Nikola Jokic remains incredible, but the infrastructure around him in Denver has completely crumbled. At this point, just grinding out an overtime win over the Raptors is a big deal.
The Nuggets have always had a poor bench in the Jokic era, but this might be their worst one yet. For a team that desperately needed shooting, the decision to make Russell Westbrook their big offseason acquisition was a highly questionable one. The younger draft picks that top executive Calvin Booth had so much conviction in entering the season just aren’t meeting the moment so far. It’s no surprise there’s reportedly real tension between the front office and head coach Mike Malone.
Jokic can make up for a lot of issues, but it’s ridiculous that Denver is putting such a big burden on his shoulders. It shouldn’t be this hard to build around The Joker, a 7-foot point-center who fills the box score like no one else alive. The Nuggets need Murray to start playing up to his talent level again, and they need everyone else to start hitting shots. It’s easy to forget that Denver won 57 games a year ago after their second round playoff exit. There’s no excuse for this team to be as bad as its been in the first week. The Nuggets will always have a chance with Jokic around, but the problems here likely aren’t going away.
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Indiana Pacers
The Pacers were the biggest surprise team of last season, using a modern “7 Seconds or Less” offense to win 47 games and eventually earn a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals. It was always going to be hard for Indiana to measure up to last year’s playoff run, but few thought they would struggle as badly as they have during their 1-3 start.
The Pacers had the second best offense in the NBA last year. Through four games this year, it ranks No. 22. Tyrese Haliburton just hasn’t looked the same since suffering a hamstring strain just before the All-Star break last season. Haliburton returned early in part to hit the games minimum to be named All-NBA, and he really hasn’t looked like his old self since. His assists have been cut in half from last year thus far, and his scoring is taking a big hit too as he struggles to shoot the ball. So far, Haliburton is shooting 33.9 percent from the field and 26.5 percent from three.
Indiana just doesn’t have a lot of defensive punch alongside him. Myles Turner is still a good player, but his days as a Defensive Player of the Year candidate are over. Pascal Siakam has been solid to star the season, but he can’t be this team’s driving force. Indiana still just looks small and weak, and now they don’t have an amazing offense to fall back on. Haliburton returning to the form he showed early last year would solve a lot of Indiana’s problems, but that player has been gone for a little while now. The Pacers are a work in progress until their star point guard gets right.
