Basketball Intelligence for 10/11/23
The Day's Best Reporting and Analysis
LEAGUEWIDE STORIES
Top NBA small forwards for 2023-24: Ranking all 30 starters from Jayson Tatum, LeBron James to Jimmy Butler
Stephen Noh, The Sporting News
Five Rivalries That Will Define the 2023-24 NBA Season
Danny Chau, The Ringer
The Good, the Bad, and the Wild From 21 Years of the NBA’s Annual GM Survey
Zach Kram, The Ringer
The juiciest individual award is also where general managers are the least accurate. In 21 years of this survey, the GMs’ preseason MVP favorite has gone on to win the award only four times—and three of those four times, the victor was LeBron.
NBArank 2023: Player rankings for 2023-24, from 50 to 11
Staff, ESPN.com
It Might Only Get Worse For The NBA’s Middle Class Moving Forward
Bryan Toporek, Forbes
In early August, ESPN's Bobby Marks debunked the notion that the new CBA had completely wiped out the middle class. This upcoming season, 99 players are earning between 5 and 9.9% of the salary cap. That's more than last year (66), the 2021-22 season (78) and the 2020-21 campaign (77).
Still, it's worth noting how many teams didn't use the full array of salary-cap exceptions at their disposal this offseason—and why that number might go up next year and beyond.
Only 11 teams dipped into whichever variation of mid-level exception was available to them, and only three—the Cleveland Cavaliers (Ty Jerome), Los Angeles Lakers (Taurean Prince) and Toronto Raptors (Jalen McDaniels)—used their bi-annual exception, according to Salary Swish. A majority of the teams that did use their MLE didn't even spend the full value (from $5 million for the taxpayer MLE to $12.4 million to the non-taxpayer MLE).
Former NBA Coach Brendan Malone Dies at 81
Meghann Morhardt, The Messenger
Hollinger: 12 NBA players you may not know who will impact this season
John Hollinger, The Athletic
TEAM STORIES
ATL: Starters impress, Trent Forrest delivers in Hawks’ 108-107 win against Cavaliers
Malik Brown, Peachtree Hoops
ATL: Hawks open exhibition play with win over Cavaliers
Lauren Williams, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BKN: Nets look to improve their spacing after rough preseason opener
Brian Lewis, New York Post
BOS: Celtics big man Neemias Queta works to earn his opportunities on the court
Adam Himmelsbach, Boston Globe