Fear City: Is it Time for Your Team to Panic?
The NBA season is barely underway, but it's never too early to freak the fuck out. Should you? Panic levels are gauged on a scale of 🆘 to 🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘
BROOKLYN
After jettisoning Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and Mikal Bridges over the last season and change, the Nets are clearly not prioritizing winning a ton of games. But until they rid the roster of useful role players, Brooklyn looks too sensibly-constructed to truly reek. They have a pair of teensy and hilarious chuckers who are putting up over 24 points a night, decent wings acquired in the 2023 implosion, and an excellent rim-protector. Currently 2-3 with a positive Net Rating, Brooklyn would have a winning record if they hadn’t blown a lead against the Nuggets and lost in overtime. The leveling of lottery odds has diminished the need for rebuilding teams to yank out the life support tube immediately—and the Nets can’t be blamed for trying to squeeze every dripping of trade value out of Dennis Schröder, Cam Johnson, and Dorian Finney-Smith, none of whom will likely be in Fort Greene for the next Great Pupkin dog costume contest. Things could be worse, however you want to interpret that.
🆘 🆘
MILWAUKEE
Through five games, Milwaukee has only one win—and it came against the injured-wracked Sixers, who are presently staggering around the court with Tyrese Maxey and a Big3 roster. Since the victorious opener, the Bucks have dropped four straight by double-digits, including a 23-point pasting at the hands of the Grizzlies (who entered Thursday night’s game with a losing record themselves). A quick tale of the tape: Milwaukee is 24th in offensive rating, 24th in defensive rating, and 28th in net rating.
The team’s scoring has been sandbagged by awful perimeter shooting—particularly from Brook Lopez and Pat Connaughton—but collectively bricking at 30% from deep is an early season quirk. Milwaukee is suffering from the Doc Rivers Special: abandoning offensive rebounding in order to bolster the transition defense and still sucking at transition defense anyway. Predictably, Rivers has only played one guy under 29 years old for more than eight minutes a game, and that’s seven-year journeyman Gary Trent Jr. There’s already muttering about superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo demanding a trade, with no shortage of terrain-shifting destinations that could conceivably put together a commensurate return package (San Antonio, Chicago, or Houston might all work, without even getting creative). As we said in the Cookies Hoops Big 2025 NBA Preview: we all need to tirelessly work together to strand Dame Lillard in Milwaukee.
🆘🆘🆘🆘🆘
NEW YORK
With expectations at their highest since the Reagan administration, Bing Bong Nation has found plenty of reasons to whip themselves into a frenzy: Mikal Bridges’ trebuchet shooting form, Josh Hart’s preseason inaccuracy, Karl-Anthony Towns’ lack of touches, and an opening night humiliation in Boston. But since being pulverized by the Celtics—who cheated by taking too many 3-pointers—the Knicks have pretty much looked as expected. They’re a very talented team without much depth on the bench that is figuring out how to play with new personnel on the fly. If there’s cause to be fretful, it’s whether the core can make it safely through Tom Thibodeau’s regular season meat-grinder without being turned into knee-cartilage sausage.
🆘
PHILADELPHIA
Since 2022, the league office has fined Philly at least thrice for violating the rules for reporting injuries—and each time the transgression has involved MVP-winning center Joel Embiid. That speaks to the Sixers’ main issue: Embiid’s knees. After being slowed by injuries in the Playoffs, the franchise centerpiece was noticeably plodding in the Summer Games and his season debut has been pushed back until, maybe, this weekend? When Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George are playing, the team should win most games. Whether the Sixers can stay afloat when they don’t is another question.
At the moment, Philly looks like a mouse paddling frantically in a water bucket. Without Embiid and George for first two weeks of the season, the Sixers have been the second-worst team in the NBA, especially if you account for strength of schedule (there are three single-win calamities in the East, and all of them earned their lone victory over Philly). Last year, Philly played at roughly a 30-win clip when Embiid wasn’t in the lineup—and the supporting cast is now weaker. Despite some pundits suggesting that the Sixers’ bench was “deep,” having a nonfunctional roster was a predictable consequence of an extremely top-heavy build. Until Embiid and George return all we can do is enjoy watching Maxey do his best Monta Ellis impersonation.
🆘🆘
NEW ORLEANS
The Pelicans started the season 2-0 and proceeded to get ferociously annihilated in three consecutive games (once by the Trail Blazers and twice by the Warriors). The offense is putrid, the defense is mid. New Orleans hasn’t been firing up many 3s, taking responsible custody of the rock, or getting to the stripe much, and has been worse in each of those categories than last season. Aside from the malformed roster and an injury to Trey Murphy III, the most puzzling issue is Zion Williamson’s uncharacteristic inefficiency. Regardless of whether he subsisted only on muffulettas over the offseason, how does a guy with a lifetime field goal percentage of 59%—the overwhelming amount of which are layups—suddenly shoot 36% from the floor? Williamson's tough start is likely temporary, but the Pelicans' troubles feel more intrinsic.
🆘🆘🆘
SAN ANTONIO
With offseason additions of point gawd Chris Paul and reliable veteran Harrison Barnes, the Spurs seemingly created an ecosystem in which Victor Wembanyama could quickly ascend to apex predator. But the 7-foot-4 pterosaur has flailed a bit early on, most notably in an embarrassing 6-point, 1-5 shooting effort against the Thunder. While he's been clanking 3s and teams have employed new defensive tactics against the giant Frenchman, there aren't many other signs of an individual slump (his 5x5 on Thursday is an easy indicator of why his next leap is so captivating). The team's most glaring issues are his fit with forward Jeremy Sochan and surviving when Wembanyama isn't on the court at all: in those minutes, the Spurs have the worst numbers in the NBA and are getting crushed by 22.2 points per 100 possessions.
🆘
UTAH
The Jazz are fine with being the only winless team in the NBA. Still, they’d probably like to have an offense ranked higher than 30th in the league or observe more development from kiddies like Keyonte George or Cody Williams (who are arguably the worst players getting minutes in the association, with respective field goal percentages of 26% and 28%). But who cares? Danny Ainge is trying to convert Cooper Flagg into the most loathed man in American sports. The plan is going fine.
😊
If you enjoyed this essay and the artwork, you will surely be interested in The Joy of Basketball, by Ben Detrick and Andrew Kuo. Find it where you buy books, even if you hate reading like we do.