You know the best way to alienate all the new subscribers I’ve gotten over the last year?
Inflict actual poetry upon them.
Longtime readers know that the name “Basketball Poetry” isn’t an elevated opinion of my own prose or a snappier way of comparing basketball to poetry. No, this blog’s origins date back to Facebook wall posts I made over a decade ago with a season-preview haiku for every team—something I’ve never stopped doing.
Is this a time-honored tradition that everyone loves? No, based on my clicks and views, everyone actually hates it! But tradition is tradition, damn it, and I feel an urge to stick it to AI by writing 30 really bad, entirely too human verses. I encourage you to leave your own in the comments!
To add a little more heft, I also discuss a key question every team faces. Western Conference “poems” will come out before tip-off next week. I promise no more poetry after this1, so please don’t unsubscribe.
The regular season is days away, folks. Rejoice. Now, presented in no particular order:
Philadelphia 76ers
One ball, one ball, will
be the cry, while the Sixers
pass opponents by
Key Question: What is this team’s defensive ceiling?
Remarkably, the 76ers were already a bottom-six transition defense before adding Jaylen Brown and LeBron James. Let’s assume they’ll be at least that bad again, though VJ Edgecombe, Tyrese Maxey, and James will have a handful of spectacular chasedown blocks each.
But how many stops can Philly get in the halfcourt? A lot depends on how well Joel Embiid is moving. At this point, it’s safer to assume “not well.” Embiid's season-long numbers last year were surprisingly solid (77th percentile in D-EPM), but they hide how vulnerable he became for long stretches at the end of the season.
Edgecombe should be good, Maxey is much improved, and Jaylen Brown at least has certain defensive strengths. Transition woes aside, James isn’t the defensive mincemeat the Internet would have you believe. I wonder if coach Nick Nurse has the cojones to bench any of his starting five for defensive maestro Dean Wade, who may well need to close some games.
Detroit Pistons
The hunting dog dreams
hind legs kicking, chasing prey
Redemption ready.
Key Question: How much better are Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren?
Thompson and Duren will make $355 million over the next five years, approximately 37% of the salary cap starting from 2027-28. With Cade Cunningham eating up ~30% himself (the fair going rate for an All-NBA First-Teamer), the two newly rich men have some proving to do.
Neither seems likely to develop a workable three-pointer anytime soon, which means they need to be damn good at nearly everything else. Thompson’s defense is incredible, but he can be even better if he cuts out one avoidable foul per game. He also needs to be more dynamic with the ball in his hands. Maybe five players in the league have his superhero athleticism, but he can’t apply it without further developing his handle and court vision.
Duren improved greatly on defense last season, but that only brought him up to so-so overall. I think he’s a pretty good passer, but it rarely shows up in the box score; maybe he’s missing opportunities, and maybe coach JB Bickerstaff can use him for more than just finishing plays.
I have high hopes for the Pistons, but they need internal improvement from a young, now highly compensated core to surpass last season’s playoff disappointment. Detroit’s main trio will never be the smoothest on-court fit, but they can still succeed, even in the revealing confines of the postseason.
Last year showed them just how high the mountaintop is; this season will prove whether the climb is too steep.
Charlotte Hornets
Layups? Nah, just threes
Rebounding? Yeah! Kick out, three
Defense? Nah, just threes
Key Question: Do they have an All-Star?
If the Hornets want to move past the highs and lows of the LaMelo Ball experience and secure an actual playoff berth, one of Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel, or Coby White will have to make an All-Star team.
Given that all three have recently dealt with or are currently dealing with health issues, we’re off to a great start!
Unlike the Boston Celtics, who lean on an overwhelming amount of threes because of Mazzulla’s dogmatic belief in the math, the Hornets will be firing away because they simply don’t have many guys who can consistently get two feet into the paint.
Coby White can, to a degree, and Naz Reid will when he wants to, but neither Brandon Miller nor Kon Knueppel have consistently generated shots at the rim in their short careers.
Few non-point-guard perimeter players have become All-Stars solely as jump-shooters. At some point, to take that next leap, you must be able to beat your man one-on-one. If Charlotte is to exceed my expectations, it’s because Miller, Knueppel, or even White does so to a degree we haven’t yet seen.
Toronto Raptors
Excavating past
Is Kawhi a fossil, or
apex predator
Key Question: What is the offense’s ceiling?
Forgive me for cheating, but let me quote myself for the main gist of this:
Kawhi Leonard has been in the 90th percentile or above in offensive on/off in six of the last seven years (and he was still well above average in the one year he wasn’t). The Raptors are returning all their most important pieces except Ingram (on whom Leonard is a comprehensive upgrade), and already, last year they somehow eked out the league’s 13th-best rating. Even more surprisingly, this wasn’t caveman ball — they were 10th in halfcourt first-shot rating and ran like all hell to avoid the halfcourt in the first place.
Coach Darko Rajaković didn’t get enough credit last season for implementing a motion-heavy, quick-hitting offense that leaned into Scottie Barnes’ strengths as a creator:
![zn4y6i_1.mp4 [optimize output image]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C4MH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc5da3112-b4e1-405d-85be-cc8b6c835a68_724x416.gif "zn4y6i_1.mp4 [optimize output image]")
Few coaches have the luxury of using their power forward to initiate (and reject) the Spain pick-and-roll set we see above; kudos to Darko for taking advantage.
While Kawhi was the number-one story this offseason, Barnes’ mindset growth is the thing to watch. He passed too much last season. Will he be the aggressive, take-no-prisoners star we saw outshining James Harden, Donovan Mitchell, and Evan Mobley in last year’s playoffs? Or will he recede into the often exhilarating but ultimately disappointing pass-first role that leads too often to passivity? We’ll find out soon.