[SI] Anonymous Scouts Takes: Previewing All 30 NBA Teams

2021-22

https://www.si.com/nba/2021/10/15/nba-preview-anonymous-scout-takes-lakers-nets-warriors-bucks

Philadelphia 76ers
With Ben Simmons, it’s easy to say ‘dump him,’ but my thing has always been, who else are you going to get? One, he's an elite defender. I think at the point guard position, he was probably the most consistent defender the whole season. I don't think that gets talked about enough, even though I know more people talk about it, but he's an elite defender at his position. His offensive weaknesses show up and they show up during playoff time. If it is the end, which it looks like it's going to be, my question is what you get back in return, and whatever you get back in return, it might not be a better player than Simmons, but it's got to be a better fit around Embiid, if that's the direction you're going to go … Embiid and Simmons aren’t a championship duo. They've lost, in the playoffs, and they did it with Embiid basically playing like the MVP. They still couldn't get it done in the playoffs.

Toronto Raptors
There are real issues with Pascal Siakam. I don't know what it is, but I think Siakam, just the past 18 months, has just been trending downwards. Obviously them losing Kyle [Lowry], them handing over the keys to Fred VanVleet, I think VanVleet's a great player, but I think they need Siakam to be really good. I could see them, if he gets off to another rough start, them trying to send him somewhere for another all-star type player. Who that player is, I don't know, but it'll be interesting to see if we get the Siakam that everybody fell in love with.

Chicago Bulls
Chicago improved offensively. I don't know how much they improved defensively. To me defensively they look like they're going to be pretty f-----g bad again. You know, they all play hard. I guess Lonzo Ball is a good defender. To me they added another good scorer, but I don't know how good DeMar DeRozan is. He's good enough to start. I don't know that he's a top line guy, but he's still pretty good at the end of games. He can get shots off. He can make tough shots. Now you've got him and LaVine, who can both get some s--t done. The one question I still have with them is who's going to lead the charge in terms of this is how we play every night. They didn't have much leadership last year. LaVine's not that guy. Who is it for them? That'd be the big question I have with them. LaVine is a top level scorer but he's not a leader.

Cleveland Cavaliers
I think Collin Sexton is a backup and an a--hole. None of his teammates like him. I like Garland. I actually like Garland. I think he plays hard. He puts pressure on you because he can shoot, he can pass, and he's a much more willing passer. He's not out there trying to f-----g get his stats and go home in the same way that Sexton is. I don't think they can play those two small guards together and get a ton out of them. I thought they were on the right track last year until they traded for Jarrett Allen and basically told Drummond we're not bringing you back, because defensively they were hanging around that top 10 area … Evan Mobley to me seems like he's the real deal in terms of his talent, his skillset. Again, he's a rookie who floated some in college so we'll see how that goes. Not a big Jarrett Allen guy. He's fine but nothing crazy. Okoro seems like he's got the potential to be a pretty damn good defender but I don't know how much more than that.

Miami Heat
Everybody is excited about Kyle Lowry, but is he that big of an upgrade over Goran Dragic? Dragic could score and he had great chemistry with that team. Lowry is a leader but he has a lot of miles on him. He takes a lot of contact, a lot of charges. I worry about injuries with him. Jimmy Butler is a stud. There aren’t many guys in the league I’d want to have the ball in key situations more than him. He needs to be more of a playmaker with this group. They don’t have a lot of shot creators. Butler has to be one of them. Duncan Robinson has to get his swagger back. He played with unbelievable confidence in 2020. I didn’t see that same confidence last season. I think he felt some pressure. Maybe now that he has his contract, he’ll play more relaxed. Same thing with Tyler Herro. He has to get back to the guy we saw in 2020. The starting lineup is great. The bench is weak.

Atlanta Hawks
Atlanta is definitely a team on the rise. Trae Young is the real deal. He’s sort of mastered that Chris Paul ability to draw contact in the paint, which sends him to the free throw line a lot. He could be an MVP candidate this season. There are so many really good young players on this roster. And Nate McMillan is the right guy to coach them. He’s brought discipline to that team. You can see it in how they play. And when they don’t make mistakes, they are really hard to beat.

Utah Jazz
The Jazz are knocking on the door. I think they have a Phoenix-like run for the Finals in them. They are a model of consistency. Their full team is coming back. They were the number one seed last year, and you can see them being the number one seat again … Donovan Mitchell can be the top guy on a title team. I don’t know why he gets criticized. I think he took a step towards doing that last season. His development is very similar to Devin Booker. He's proven that in the playoffs, he's a primetime guy and he's carrying his team deep into playoffs. He’s gotten to a certain level, which a lot of these players have, especially a lot of these young players where their expectations skyrocket and we get spoiled with what they do in the regular season and we just want to see it in the playoffs. I think that's the tier that Mitchell falls under now … A big question: Can Gobert stay on the floor in the playoffs? They committed to him. They've doubled down on, and they believe that he can play in the playoffs and play in the crunch time minutes. He couldn’t against the Clippers. He is going to have to prove he can play against smaller lineups. But he’s such an elite defender, rim protector, with a little offense, and you just live with some of his weaknesses … I think if they get the right match-ups, I think they can go to the Finals. But I wouldn't be surprised if at the end they're the number one seed and go into the finals.

Portland Trail Blazers
I'm a fan of the Damian Lillard-CJ McCollum backcourt. I think the team struggles says more about the guys around them than those two guys. I don't think they've done a great job of surrounding them two with the players needed for them to succeed … They've missed a lot on guys that they've tried to bring in and try to build around those guys. The clock is ticking over there … I don't think they make the playoffs. The West is loaded again. As special as Lillard is and how good McCollum is, I just don't like the roster they've put around, the depth that they built. The roster is super thin.

Minnesota Timberwolves
Karl-Anthony Towns isn’t a number one guy. He just hasn't proven it on a winning team. You could say, "Well, they haven't had a good team." But he's been given the opportunity and if you love the roster or not, he just hasn't proven that he could carry the load to win aside from getting his numbers. It seems like he always gets his numbers and they're monster numbers some nights, but it just doesn't seem like he impacts winning. As a defender, he really doesn't give you much. He doesn't give you rim protection. He's a true five. He's a great offensive five, but he's a below average defender at the five … I’m a big Anthony Edwards fan. He has the talent, the potential, the mindset. He can definitely be an all-star here in the near future. He might be the guy that emerges as the lead man on that team … I still think they have a lot of questions. New ownership group coming, I think that adds another layer of questions: what's going to happen there, what's going to happen with the players if they don't get off to a good start. You can hear Towns name on the trade block.

 

Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers are swinging for the fences. Russ is a boom or bust kind of deal. On one hand you've got three super talented guys, you've got a guy in Westbrook, who has a history of just going on runs where he just wins you games by how he plays and with his intensity. But on the other hand I don't see how that works when it really matters. There's a ton of questions that are going to be really tough for those guys. A.D's health, LeBron's age, the lack of shooting, Westbrook, his decision making and play, for a guy who's a great player, at the end of games, how many dumb decisions does he make? Not to mention, how many guys do they have that are really old, over 35? It seems like a lot. I never really even want to doubt LeBron, because I think he's really f-----g good. And if he hadn't gotten hurt last year, they're on their way to the one seed or two seed and probably in the Finals, but he does and now it totally changes. I'm a little skeptical, I guess I would say, The argument for it would be you get as much talent and star power as you can, and then you figure out the rest ... To me, you could see them winning a significant amount of games and just overpowering you. But it just seems like they got to really thread the needle for that to happen.

Phoenix Suns
Phoenix will be close to what they were last year, above the top half of the West kind of team. Especially if CP's healthy, probably very similar because they were good defensively. They're good offensively. They've got multiple guys who can shoot. The thing I thought that was pretty underrated with them, was they had a good mix and a good group of young guys that, they won a lot of games at the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth quarter, because they had guys that could score a little bit and then they surrounded them with guys who could all shoot and defend and keep rotating and playing hard. They have a chance to get out of the West. But I don't think that I'd say they're the best team in the west either.

Golden State Warriors
Stephen Curry was all-world last year. He was pretty remarkable … Draymond Green defensively was really impressive. Obviously when he was on the floor, they were very good defensively, if he's got Curry and Klay Thompson, his offensive game is pretty good too. If he doesn't have both of them, it changes things so much for them. He needs shooting around him to be an effective offensive player ... With Klay Thompson, I would assume the shooting is still going to be there. It's just how well does he move without the ball and shoot on the move? The other thing too is if he's really pushing to be back and he's not fully ready to go, does he break down again? We've seen that with a number of guys, they're like, "I'm ready to go," and then one injury leads to an injury somewhere else because they overcompensate. So that would be the question I have, cause just hearing him talk and hearing the people out there, he wants to play opening night and they're trying to push him back till, the new year somewhere or thereabouts.

Houston Rockets
Christian Wood had a good season on a bad team. Whatever. The question is can he do that in a winning environment? I liked their draft pick Jalen Green. I think he's going to be a really good player. And they're kind of building slowly. Wood's is a modern big where he can pick and pop and roll. And I think he did a lot of good things. It's going to be interesting if Wood can have that kind of production on a winning team … I'm not a big fan of Kevin Porter. I understand the talent and I understand a lot of people like him. To me he is just another guy who can put up numbers on bad teams. I have more confidence in Wood being able to do it in a winning environment than I would to Porter Jr.

San Antonio Spurs
I think everyone just thinks about the old San Antonio teams, but they haven't been really good recently. They just haven't. They're going to play hard every night, but again, what floor and ceiling they have, I think they're both kind of low. I think Dejounte Murray is a good player. I think they have some pretty good players on that team, but I just think where did they go? What direction is it? Derrick White is a good player and a lot of people like Keldon Johnson. I think Lonnie Walker gets talked about a lot. They signed Doug McDermott and Bryn Forbes, but they signed Zach Collins. I think at what point, it's just as a team that's never going to bottom out, so they'll never get high into the lottery to maybe get a difference maker. I think it's just going to be another season where they're just kind of playing for the sake of playing game.

 

2022-23

Eastern Conference
https://www.si.com/nba/2022/10/13/a...-eastern-conference-nets-celtics-bucks-sixers

 

Western Conference
https://www.si.com/nba/2022/10/14/a...tered-western-conference-lakers-warriors-suns

The Rockets are going to stink. Again. Their spacing was horrendous last season. Their willingness to pass was terrible. Their defense stunk. ... Jabari Smith Jr. can help defensively right away. On offense, he has that high release that makes his shot impossible to get to. If he starts making them, he could surprise people early. ... If I were them, I’d get Kevin Porter Jr. out of there and say, “Hey, Jalen Green and Smith, we’re going to roll with you guys. Hey, Stephen Silas, your job as coach is to make those two guys better. Then we’re going to get a top-five pick again next year. And then we’re going to say, ‘These are our three guys.’”