(1) Philadelphia Sixers
(2) Milwaukee Bucks
(3) Boston Celtics
The East can go in so many different directions. I decided to separate two class of teams from each other. It’s not necessarily a reflection on whether they are contenders from the eastern conference. I simply feel one class collectively has more depth, comradery, and balance than the other. All six teams can be potentially be a top seed.
Philadelphia has some of the best talent together in the conference, and they added great role-players in Melton, Tucker, Harrell, and House Jr. In fact, it appears that this team can essentially be called Houston Rockets 2.0 with Embiid. That’s… a really damn good team, and I feel like Philadelphia has the highest chance to come out with the best seed. Embiid and Harden are more motivated than anybody, Maxey has room to grow, and they finally have shooters and defenders. My problem? Health. Embiid played 60 plus games for the first-time last season. That’s great, and he’s trending higher and higher as far as remaining a healthy long-term player throughout the regular season. If he can do it again, and Harden can have a solid 10+ games without Embiid, then this team should be in the best possible position out of everyone. Their offensive statistics with Embiid and Harden together while improvising an offense in the middle of the season were impressive. Give them a full training camp and a healthy roster, and it’s easy to have them at the top.
Milwaukee has the best collective mix of established comradery, health, and depth. They had a quiet offseason by signing Ingles. Adding another playmaker and spot-up shooter who can defend in a scheme is going under the radar for many fans. Milwaukee still has one of the best trio of players in Holiday, Middleton, and Antetokounmpo. They’ve shown willingness to experiment and manage the regular season more casually, so that certainly is a mark against them in having the best chance in having a winning record, but they certainly have a higher floor than most teams in this conference.
Boston found an identity in their finals run but losing your head coach for the year after that must be a big hit. Their offseason for a finals team was great. Brogdon plugs up all the ballhandling issues they were dealing with last season. Comradery was really the struggle this team has had the past few years. Can they survive without the head coach?
Another question I have is the stability of their defensive frontline. I love Horford, but he’s broken down at some point just about every regular season for them, and with Williams not available to start the season, they’re missing their best defensive piece. Gallinari, another offseason addition they added to create more versatility, will also not be available due to injury. I’m confident this team can make the playoffs, but I’m not confident about them making any sort of jump. I would only be surprised if they didn’t secure home court advantage.
(4) Brooklyn Nets
(5) Cleveland Cavaliers
(6) Miami Heat
This class of teams once again aren’t necessarily incapable of accomplishing the same things those above them are; they simply are experimenting a bit more or have questionable depth/more concerning injury history.
I dare anybody to feel confident in anything they say about Brooklyn. I have so many questions. Will Durant, Simmons, and Irving play enough games? Will drama happen? Can they succeed playing small with Simmons at the five for long stretches? I have no clue about anything. Philadelphia went on an impressive month-long run a few years ago without Embiid. Simmons was the only star player on the floor, but they played transition basketball with some of the best shooters. Offensively, it’s a very scary line-up to have Simmons and lots of great shooters. You could have regular season success even if your defense isn’t up to snuff.
But this could all go tumbling down, because maintaining that kind of efficiency is hard if you have drama, star players in and out, a coach that apparently isn’t coaching, and no real center to speak of. This team could be great or horrible, and I chose the very middle.
Cleveland is the new upcoming and potentially contending team in the East, and that’s saying a lot considering how long we’ve seen Atlanta and New York flail out. They had a strong regular season last year until injuries hit them, and they couldn’t recover from the play-in tournament. This tells me that depth is a concern once injuries happen.
The good news is that if fully healthy, I don’t see any reason Cleveland wouldn’t get homecourt advantage. They have to incorporate Mitchell but he fits right into their team as they needed another creator and slasher from the perimeter. It’ll be interesting to see how Mitchell plays without Gobert but with a Gobert-like defender.
Speaking of their frontline, Mobley certainly has room to grow considering his rookie season last year was phenomenal. Growth from him alone should have them improve as an overall team from last season. The big questions for Cleveland: who is that forward in your best line-up?
Is it Wade? Okoro? Osman? I’ve even seen them try LeVert in the starting line-up during the preseason. They have some things to figure out at that small forward position. They must find the perfect mixture of minutes for that spot considering it’s the most star-studded position in the league right now, and it’s exactly what got them eliminated at home against Durant. Figure out that small forward position, stay healthy and maybe even develop some depth along the bench with Love and they should be fine.
Miami had great success last regular season despite their aging core. Lowry missed many games as well. What can we expect with essentially the same roster for another go-around? Well, it doesn’t help that everybody else improved externally except you. Additionally, your stars are another year older. One could argue that internal improvement isn’t uncommon with their younger players, and a healthy Lowry can still change things, but it doesn’t inspire confidence within an eastern conference more stacked than last year’s. They are very similar to Milwaukee in that I’m not super confident in their ceiling, but I’m confident in their floor.
Heat culture is enough to get in the playoffs with their core. Health will determine how far they go. I don’t think Bam has another gear in him to improve on the offensive end. The true x-factor here is Oladipo. He showed good spots of scoring in the last playoff run. Any resurgence from him is likely going to help bolster Miami’s depth. I won’t get my hopes up too high on that, but out of all the teams around this “semi-contender” class, they give me the most meh feeling when looking at them even if they were the previous number one seed. Mainly because even throughout that year, they didn’t feel like a true number one seed to me.
(7) Toronto Raptors
(8) Atlanta Hawks
(9) New York Knicks
Every year, Toronto is always overrated or underrated. We must accept that as a fact of life. Nick Nurse is still an excellent, unconventional coach. They always play hard during the regular season, have tons of wing versatility, Barnes will certainly improve, and Anunoby looks likely to play more games than last season. To me, this is enough for them for them to make the playoffs. Their defensive tenacity and versatility is just universally troublesome, which sets a very high floor for them. If they want to reach a higher ceiling, Barnes is the one to take them there.
Atlanta is full of question marks. 2021 is looking more and more like a Cinderella story to me. Hunter is always injured, Capela lost a step, and Young appears to be alienating as a star player to his teammates. I was a little bit intrigued by the trade for Murray, but after some months, it isn’t as impressive to me anymore when I first heard it. Murray frees up Young to play off ball and takes on more defensive responsibilities, but do I really think a point guard can improve one of the worst defensive teams in the league? They’re going to need to show me more to put them anywhere above play-in status.
New York like Atlanta had a Cinderela run in 2021 but only in the regular season. The thing about Thibs teams I’ve noticed is that, after that one great season, it’s straight downhill. He isn’t warm to rookies and he’s very rigid about the style he wants to play. Brunson, Randle, and Barrett as your core talent doesn’t give me good vibes although Barrett has room to grow into a potential star. I say, if New York does anything this year, it’s through Barrett and Thibodeau’s change in schemes.
(10) Indiana Pacers
They have a great core of young players, and out of the bottom-dwelling teams in the east (Charlotte, Orlando, Detroit), I like them better to try for the play-in than other teams. Either they’ll do a lot of experimenting, or just be a middling eastern conference team. I don’t quite know what they plan to do with Turner and Hield, but the squad now is pretty solid and one could make a case that their younger players have enough chemistry to separate themselves from the class of teams around them.