Rosters are set. Now where do we rank?

[Morris_Shatford]

The team showed it could defend down the stretch;
Assuming we get 65 to 75 games from the majority of the starters and 50 to 60 out of Ingram,

Maybe optimistically 46 - 36 and in and around the 6th spot?

[TheGeneral99]

Depends on a few factors:

1) HEALTH - Can Ingram and Quickley stay healthy? If our starters can play at least 80% of the season we would be in good shape to make a run.

2) IMPROVEMENT - How much will Scottie, Gradey, Walters, Shead and Mogbo improve going into next season.

I would say realistically we are looking at the 7-9 seed...but if we have health and some improvement we could be as high as the 4th or 5th seed.

[Dalek]

Cleveland
New York

Philadelphia (assuming they bounce back from a year of obvious tanking and Embiid plays like an MVP)
Orlando
Atlanta
Detroit (they may have lost THJ and Beasley, but got Robinson who is battle-tested and bigger, plus getting Ivey back if a whole new dynamic for them)

Boston (the have frontcourt issues to resolve, but they are well-coached and have Jaylen Brown and Derrick White).
Miami
Chicago
Milwaukee
Toronto
Indiana

Washington
Brooklyn
Charlotte

To me the third tier could have Toronto near the top or at the bottom of it. A lot of those teams like Boston and Miami really haven't finished their offseasons so those are TBD. I think Toronto is closest to Indiana where we don't know how they will perform - Toronto hasn't had the core play together at all, so I assume we need 1-2 months of feeling each other out.

[TheAlchemist23]

35 wins if we don't "tank"

[OakleyDokely]

35 wins if we don't "tank"

we won 30 when we did tank.

[basketballto]

Top three. The east is wide open. Cavs are thr best team.

[Double Helix]

I think the East next year will be a tale of two halves with experienced teams like Milwaukee and Philadelphia both looking initially like they are better than they truly are and eventually fading in the second half.

Similarly, I think Indiana and Boston’s remaining players how too much pride to surrender out of the gate and will battle for a couple months but eventually realize they don’t have the horses and the team will sell further and aim to do 1 year tanks at the deadline onward.


Lastly, I think Orlando, Atlanta, and Detroit will all improve as the season goes on and finish their second halves better than their first.

Jan 1 standings (barring injuries and trades):

(Note: Expect the winning % differences between many of the 3-7 squads here to be less dramatic than the standings would suggest)

1) Cleveland
2) New York
3) Philadelphia
4) Millwaukee
5) Orlando
6) Atlanta
7) Detroit
8) Toronto
9) Indiana
10) Boston

Indiana and Boston then sell more and rest and tank further post trade deadline. Atlanta, Detroit and Orlando chemistry grows as the year goes on and maybe they add a bit at the deadline so all of them overtake Milwaukee and Philly. Embiid inevitably misses more time. Milwaukee’s offence hits some cold spells that lead to some medium term losing streaks.

In the end the actual final East, barring injuries and trades:

ECF CONTENDER TIER:
1) Cleveland
2) New York

3-6 TIER:
3) Orlando
4) Atlanta
5) Detroit
6) Philadelphia

PLAY-IN TIER:
7) Toronto
8) Milwaukee
9) Miami
10) Charlotte

It wouldn’t be a bad turnaround from being the 8th worst team in all of basketball the year prior to this. We then assess how the group looks in the play-in, or barring a win there, first round playoff and make adjustments via trades heading into the following season.

FWIW: here’s the difference between 6-10 last year Feb 1 versus end of the year:

Feb 1

6) Miami
7) Detroit
8) Orlando
9) Atlanta
10) Chicago

EOY:

6) Detroit
7) Orlando
8) Atlanta
9) Chicago
10) Miami

[ConSarnit]

Outside of the top 4 (CLE, NYK, ORL, ATL) the East is an absolute cluster-f.

PHI: if Embiid is facing chronic knee problems (which I suspect he is) I don’t see how they can possibly get to 50 wins

BOS: still has some good players but have fallen off significantly

DET: some upside still remaining but not sure how much

MIL: should be competitive if Giannis can play 65 games

If you told me there were 5 East teams that will all win 44 games next season I’d believe you.

I think we’re somewhere between 6-9. I think we’ll be clearly better than CHI and MIA.

[SpezNc]

Bobby was pretty clear the roster is not set

Was he ?

[MiamiSPX]

So like most, I have NYK, CLE and ORL as the only sure bets to be good and a legit top seeds.

I'm really down on a lot of teams in the East.

BKN, CHI, CHA, WAS - These are your cellar dwellers.

MIA - Not worth discussing. They are going to be bad.

PHI - Not worth discussing. Nobody can convince me that Embiid's career isn't on the brink of coming to an end. I have 0 faith he will play even half a season. I doubt PG13 plays more than 60.

MIL - As much as the Dame trade didn't really work out, weren't he and Giannis the highest scoring duo in the East? Turner isn't going to replace Dame's scoring. The rest of the team is largely the same underwhelming players as last year. I mean, KPJ might be their 3rd or 4th best player (and is always a risk to wear out his welcome).

BOS - Losing Tatum, Porzingis, Jrue, Kornet, and possibly Horford is bad. Really bad.

INDY - No Haliburton, lost Turner. That will mean a dip in the standings. Deep enough to make the playoffs IMO, but obviously not a threat to do anything once there.

DET - Their success came due to (1) Cade's leap and (2) the contributions they got from their castoff signings in Harris, THJ and Beasley (a fact that tWo will never admit lol). Swapping the latter 2 out with Robinson and LeVert is a lateral move at best, and a downgrade is mot likely. THJ and Beasley were really good for them. They are also going to have to deal with some possible noise about all the games that were impacted by Beasley's gambling.

ATL - This is a weird one. I liked some of their pieces before their moves, but I feel they are getting too much praise for their acquisitions. Porzingis is never healthy. NAW was a good pickup, but paid way too much. Kennard is so meh.

I would put us in with the bunch that have some question marks, namely does BI stay healthy.....and does Barnes take the leap for which most of us are hoping? I don't expect growth from all the sophomores (hence the reason there is a term coined for that 2nd season). Let's just hope most of them show some marked improvement. I like that we don't have the desired minutes available, which is going to lead to some healthy competition for the bench guys.

Anywhere from 5th to 8th is my prediction. I would be surprised if we are lower than that.

[kalel123]

Our ceiling is #6 if all goes correctly health-wise.

Most likely play-in.

[Tor_Raps]

If we don’t make any trades from here on out?

I see us in the play in territory. Above .500 if Ingram stays healthy. Under .500 if Ingram isn’t able to play 60+ games.

High end outcome - 45 wins.
Expected outcome - 43 wins.
Disappointing outcome - 38 wins.



I don’t see us winning our play in games. Back to F5 on tankathon for the rest of spring.

Well said. If we're able to make 1 more trade by consolidating RJ/IQ into a better PG then we become for real. Right now, we are exactly what you said.

[Tor_Raps]

One thing is for certain, we're the hardest team to gauge.

I'd say its us and the Pelicans. Its the fun thing to pile on the Pelicans but that team easily has more talent than us and a lot of teams. They got screwed with health last year and then just decided to tank.

[Madvillainy2004]

I'll say they should be in the 6-8 tier and but I have no idea where things go.

[binjumper]

If our core guys are able to play 65-70 games, I think we can be in the 45 win range.

I will say 7th/8th right now, but I think top 6 is definitely a possibility.

I'd say 45 wins gets you the 6th seed. East is weak. Defensively the raptors are pretty damn good. I say we finish with a top 5 record in the east this year.

[Badonkadonk]

I think 5th - 8th is the range. There are far more wins to be had in the East this year and most of the roster is young + improving.

[Scase]

If BI plays 65 games, I say 7-10, maybe even 6th. If he plays less than that, my money is on 8-11.

[Ell Curry]

I think our defence can be good but I just can't see how we crack the top 20 on O.

Just not enough shooting, no star offensively who makes his teammates better, which the top 18 teams on O all had except Houston and Sacramento and they have offensive centers putting up 19 points and 5 or 6 assists as ballhandling centers (and honestly Sabonis might just count as a regular season offensive star when he plays the 5, though not the 4).

Miami finished 37-45 but had the numbers of a 42-40 team, finishing 21st on O and 9th on D. That looks right to me, looking at our decent defensive numbers, and I think Scottie can have his best defensive season so far with a bit less to do on O (remembering how Siakam went from a great defender to an average one with more usage on O, but in reverse).

Somewhere between 37 to 42 wins feels cautiously "optimistic" to me, assuming like 50-55 Ingram games and an average of 65-70 for the other main guys. That's a 7 to 12 win improvement, with about half of that for Quickley and half for Ingram. Boucher had a good (maybe unrepeatable) shooting season and he's presumably gone, so maybe take off a game for that.

I'm assuming that even if we don't start the season that way, Agbaji will end up starting to give us a POA defender against the other team's lead guard, and a little more shooting. Though the only player who really improved our pace was RJ, and I think we probably need to play with pace because we don't have a guy who can draw enough defensive attention to score in halfcourt possessions. Also we don't have another bench guy who can really score at even average efficiency.

Shooting looks better, but halfcourt possessions are going to be a slog. Nobody demands a double, teams will live with Ingram taking contested shots or Scottie doing anything outside 10 feet, unless he's developed as a shooter this summer.

We don't have a quality backup PG or center unless Shead or one of Mogbo/CMB breaks out. It's nice that they're all dogs, but size and shooting are serious issues.

We should finish ahead of Washington, Charlotte and Brooklyn. Should finish behind Cleveland and the Knicks. Then the East is a bit of a free for all. Magic should be good defensively so let's throw them ahead. That leaves 9 teams, so if we finish dead center in 5th that would be 8th overall, and yeah, 40 wins.

[SFour]

Assuming decent health I got Raptors as one of the "surprise" teams like Detroit were last season....so around 45 wins, 6th seed.

[TravisScott55]

hopefully either top 6 or bottom 3 record