One Defining Number for Every NBA Team

The start of the 2023-24 NBA season is nigh, with just one weekend left to cram in preseason studying. As was the case last season, though, we’re here to help. Here is one key number that will help explain every team’s outlook this season, for better or for worse. Teams are listed in order of their over/under win totals from FanDuel.

Boston Celtics: 61

This iteration of the Celtics should have won a title by now. NBA history says so. Over the past seven seasons, Boston has won 61 playoff games—the most for any team in league history that didn’t win a championship during that stretch. Instead, Boston’s been eliminated four times in the conference finals and once in the Finals.

That paragraph explains why Boston was so aggressive this offseason, effectively swapping in Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis for Marcus Smart, Malcolm Brogdon, Robert Williams III, and Grant Williams. The Celtics are acting with urgency because they know they’re close and need to get over the hump.

Five previous teams (not counting overlapping stretches of the same team) won at least 50 playoff games over a seven-year span without also winning a title. Four of those five never went on to win one; only the 76ers, who struggled without breaking through from 1976 through 1982, eventually triumphed, with a championship in 1983.

Milwaukee Bucks: 1.16

Aside from Victor Wembanyama’s debut, the most exciting new sight in the NBA this year will be the Damian Lillard–Giannis Antetokounmpo pick-and-roll. On one side of that combination, Giannis has never played with as devastating a playmaker as his new All-NBA teammate: Lillard pick-and-rolls scored 1.16 points per possession last season, second only to Luka Doncic’s among high-volume ball handlers.

And on the other side, Lillard has never played with as dynamic a big man as Giannis; last season, he recorded that number with backup Drew Eubanks as his primary screener. If defenses trap Lillard, he’ll dish to Giannis for a four-on-three. If defenses stick with Giannis, Lillard will walk into an open 3-pointer. If defenses switch, Lillard will roast a big man or Giannis will dunk on a small. There are no good options—no wonder Giannis marveled, “I’ve never been this open” after their first preseason game together.

Denver Nuggets: 29.0

The Nuggets won the West’s no. 1 seed and the Larry O’Brien Trophy last spring, but only one of those feats would mean anything this year. Now that Denver’s won a title, it can’t really add to its legacy in the regular season; only further playoff success would do the trick. As GM Calvin Booth told our Kevin O’Connor this offseason, “If everything is optimized, we should win three or four [titles].”

So it helps that the team’s brightest star happens to be one of the best playoff performers in NBA history. Nikola Jokic’s career postseason PER is 29.0, ahead of second-place Michael Jordan’s 28.6, third-place George Mikan’s 28.5, and fourth-place LeBron James’s 27.9. I could’ve selected one out of any dozens of remarkable Jokic numbers to fill this space, but it’s hard to beat a stat that places any active player first with Jordan as the runner-up.

Phoenix Suns: 53.6

Across two playoff series last season, the Suns attempted 53.6 percent of their shots from the midrange, according to Cleaning the Glass. That was the highest midrange rate for any playoff team since 2011-12; among playoff teams in 2022-23, nobody else was higher than 38.1 percent. All those midrange attempts meant Phoenix had the lowest frequency of shots at the rim or from behind the 3-point line, which created an unsolvable math problem in the second round against Denver.

Expect a lot more midrange shots in Phoenix this season, as well. Kevin Durant is the best and second-most prolific midrange shooter in the NBA, and Devin Booker isn’t far behind; neither is Bradley Beal, who replaces fellow midrange maven Chris Paul on the roster. Last season, all three players ranked in the top 10 in midrange attempts, per NBA.com, and they ranked first, fourth, and eighth, respectively, in midrange shooting percentage (minimum 200 attempts).

With that All-Star trio, Phoenix has the talent to craft the best offense in the NBA. It will be fascinating to see whether the Suns can reach that perch with such a heterodox approach, competing against a host of teams aiming for layups and 3s.

Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images

Cleveland Cavaliers: 1.2

Over the past three seasons, Cleveland jumped from 22 wins to 44 to 51. Whether the team can take its next crucial step forward to title contention, however, hinges largely on Evan Mobley’s offensive development. The no. 3 pick in 2021 is already a superb defender who finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting last season. But on offense, Mobley increased his scoring average by just 1.2 points per game from his rookie to sophomore season—in line with similarly small or nonexistent increases across the offensive box score.

Mobley’s offense wasn’t entirely stagnant in his second season—he was more efficient thanks to more shots, and better finishing, at the rim—but he was one of the key culprits in Cleveland’s implosion in a dispiriting first-round loss to the Knicks. The Cavaliers’ spacing was just too cramped when Mobley played with Jarrett Allen and a shaky shooter on the wing.

The Cavaliers might have addressed the second part of that problem in the offseason, signing Max Strus and Georges Niang in free agency. But they need Mobley to make greater strides on offense, or else the Mobley-Allen pairing could be destined for a breakup. Cleveland could learn a lot early in the season, if Allen’s ankle injury means Mobley will play more minutes as Cleveland’s lone big.

Golden State Warriors: 96.1

The big difference between the 2022-23 Warriors and the 2023-24 version is the presence of Chris Paul, who joined his former rivals in a trade that was partially designed to get rid of Jordan Poole’s contract and partially designed to fix Golden State’s biggest problem from last year’s playoffs. The Warriors offense completely collapsed when Steph Curry left the court: They scored 115.2 points per 100 possessions (62nd percentile) with Curry on the floor, per CtG, versus a ghastly 96.1 (0th percentile) with Curry off.

It’s impossible to overstate how terrible a 96.1 offensive rating is. For context, in the regular season, the Hornets’ league-worst offense scored 109.4 points per 100 possessions. If you, reader, were inserted into an average NBA lineup, it would probably still manage a 96.1 offensive rating.

Whether Paul starts in Golden State or not, he’ll play a lot when Curry leaves the floor, so Steve Kerr can stagger his two best creators. And even at 38 years old, Paul will surely lead an offense to better than a 96.1 rating, meaning the 2023-24 Warriors, unlike last year’s version, should be able to stay afloat with their best player on the bench.

Philadelphia 76ers: 14

The 76ers made their first substantive leap of the Process era in 2017-18, when they jumped from 28 to 52 wins; over the six seasons since, they’ve won the second-most regular-season games of any team, behind only the Bucks. And yet, while 14 teams—nearly half the league!—have played in the conference finals in that span, the 76ers have not.

Instead, the 76ers have reached the playoffs six seasons in a row, and six seasons in a row, they’ve fallen short. The ultimate irony of the Process is that it was so controversially designed to remedy the problem of a decent team that gets stuck in the middle, and now, it seems, the outcome of that entire exercise might have been getting stuck in the middle once again, with a potential Joel Embiid trade request looming if the 76ers don’t improve on that result.

Los Angeles Lakers: 16.4

The 2022-23 Lakers turned their season around at the trade deadline: They were 25-31 on February 9, but finished on an 18-8 surge—even though LeBron James missed 15 of those games—and continued all the way to the Western Conference finals.

Some of that shift was due to the team’s deadline additions; some was due to addition by subtraction, via the departure of Russell Westbrook; and some was due to the emergence of Austin Reaves in the season’s latter stages.

The undrafted wing started the season toward the back of the rotation, with a mere 10.5 percent usage rate and 7.3 points per game in October. But by season’s end, that PPG figure had more than doubled (16.9 in the playoffs), and Reaves was clearly the team’s third-best player.

Most importantly, he meshed perfectly with LeBron and Anthony Davis. The trio posted a net rating of plus-16.4, in the 99th percentile leaguewide, per CtG. It wasn’t as dominant in the playoffs (plus-5 against tougher competition), but still, combining those two samples means the trio was plus-10.3 in nearly 2,000 possessions, across the regular season and playoffs.

Lineup data often lies, but in this case, that’s a big enough margin in a big enough sample to be meaningful. As long as the Lakers have LeBron, Davis, and Reaves, they should be one of the West’s top teams.

Los Angeles Clippers: 99,274,843

The Clippers’ number in this exercise is much larger than any other team’s. That’s because it’s the number of estimated dollars they will pay just as a luxury tax bill this season, according to Spotrac, second only to the Warriors. But iterations of Golden State’s expensive roster have already won titles, more than justifying the expense. The Clippers, conversely, have failed to reach the Finals, and have won just one playoff game combined over the past two seasons. With Kawhi Leonard and Paul George set to reach free agency after this season if they don’t sign extensions, will Clippers team owner Steve Ballmer be content to keep cutting such large checks without meaningful playoff success to show for them?

Memphis Grizzlies: 36.8

Lost in all the other Grizzlies drama—Ja Morant’s off-court issues, Dillon Brooks’s antics, Brandon Clarke’s torn Achilles—is a hidden reason that Memphis disappointed with a first-round playoff exit: Center Steven Adams was injured and missed the series against the Lakers, too.

Maybe the absence of a player who’s never been an All-Star, and who ranked just ninth on the team in scoring last season, shouldn’t have hurt the Grizzlies so dearly. Yet Adams is the best player in the league at one particular skill, which is especially vital for an offense that hasn’t been the most efficient on a per-shot basis.

When Adams was on the court last season, Memphis rebounded an astounding 36.8 percent of its own misses, per CtG; for context, in the past decade, no team has posted a season-long offensive rebounding rate higher than 33.7 percent. But when Adams was off the court, Memphis’s ORB% fell by 11 percentage points, the largest gap in the league for any player with at least 1,000 minutes. The team’s overall offensive output suffered accordingly.

Adams also allows reigning Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr. to shift to power forward, where he can wreak the most havoc; lineups with both Adams and Jackson have been dominant (net rating of plus-15.9 last season and plus-9.1 in 2021-22). With both of those players healthy to start the 2023-24 season, Memphis might just survive Morant’s 25-game suspension.

New York Knicks: 28

Tom Thibodeau’s recent teams have had a tough time stacking two good seasons in a row. The Timberwolves made the playoffs in 2017-18, then fired him with a sub-.500 record midway through the next season. The Knicks made the playoffs in 2020-21, then stumbled to a 37-45 record the next season. Now, after another playoff campaign in New York, can Thibs’s team finally build on its momentum?

One positive sign for New York is that all of its important players are on the right side of the aging curve. Out of the team’s eight players who played at least 20 minutes per game in the playoffs, the oldest is Julius Randle, who’s still just 28 years old. The biggest offseason addition, Donte DiVincenzo, is also still in his mid-20s. The Knicks still lack the requisite star power to compete with the Celtics and Bucks atop the Eastern Conference, but at least in the regular season, they have the depth, youth, and growth potential to remain a strong team.

Miami Heat: 22

As ever, the question with Miami is whether the team can score consistently enough to complement one of the league’s best defenses. Even last postseason, during the Heat’s stunning run to the Finals, the offense was erratic: 119.0 rating against Milwaukee, 112.6 against New York, 116.6 against Boston, and 105.5 against Denver.

One issue—or, at least, a symptom of the broader issue—is that Miami takes a long time to get into its offensive sets and find the right shot. The Heat are methodical and precise in executing Erik Spoelstra’s schemes, but that approach leaves little margin for error if a particular play call doesn’t produce an open look. An analysis of NBA Advanced Stats data shows that 22 percent of Miami’s shot attempts last season came with seven seconds or fewer left on the shot clock. (That’s the wrong kind of 7 Seconds or Less thinking.) Only the 76ers’ 24 percent was higher. That number is concerning because teams shoot worse as the shot clock dwindles.

There’s a reason Miami tried so dearly to land Damian Lillard this offseason. But now Lillard’s on a conference rival, and the Heat are still without an early-clock creator. The perennial question persists.

Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

Minnesota Timberwolves: 14

Year 1 of the Twin Towers experiment with Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert, who stand a combined 14 feet tall, could have gone better. Towns got hurt early, and the two bigs never jelled. Across more than 1,000 regular-season possessions, per CtG, the Timberwolves scored a putrid 107.5 points per 100 possessions with the Towns-Gobert pairing. That figure ranked in the 7th percentile leaguewide.

Granted, the Wolves were still slightly positive in those minutes because of an excellent defense (106.6 defensive rating; 98th percentile), which is the expectation for a unit with Gobert. But just breaking even isn’t anywhere near good enough for a team with Minnesota’s ambitions, especially after the team mortgaged its future to acquire the center from the Jazz.

In 2024-25, Towns and Gobert will earn more than $90 million combined, just as Anthony Edwards’s max extension kicks in. If Year 2 of the pairing doesn’t go any smoother, Towns might be the next big star to change teams via trade.

New Orleans Pelicans: 30

Perhaps no team has a greater gap between its realistic floor and ceiling than the Pelicans. Given good health, New Orleans is a legitimate contender in the West; on the morning of December 31 last season, the Pelicans held a 23-12 record, which tied them for first place in the conference with the eventual champion Nuggets.

But Zion Williamson played his last game on January 2, and the Pelicans went just 19-28 after their scorching start. They finished in the West’s no. 9 slot and lost in the play-in round. There’s the rub with a team counting on Zion, who, in four seasons since being drafted, has reached 30 games played just once.

In that one healthy season, when he played 61 of 72 games in a shortened schedule, Zion was so dominant that he finished eighth in scoring and almost made an All-NBA team. He has enough basketball ability to lead a title team. But as the cliché goes, the best ability is availability, and that might be the one Zion lacks.

Oklahoma City Thunder: 44

Last season, according to an analysis of play-by-play data from Basketball Reference, Thunder centers combined for just 44 dunks: 23 from Darius Bazley, 10 from Olivier Sarr, eight from Jaylin Williams, and three from Mike Muscala.

For reference, the median team received 178 dunks from its centers last season—four times as many as the Thunder did. No other team received fewer than 67.

That 29th-place team was the Spurs, who will surely blow away that number in 2023-24 because of a new, rookie center. The same goes for Oklahoma City, because Chet Holmgren, the no. 2 pick in 2022, is back and looking strong after missing all of the 2022-23 season with a foot injury.

Dunks aren’t the end-all, be-all for a big man, but in this case, they offer a concise illustration of OKC’s lack of dynamism in the middle last season. Holmgren will offer a pointed alternative, as a sweet-shooting, rim-running, shot-swatting center who might just be the perfect pick-and-roll partner for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Holmgren might get 44 dunks on alley-oops alone this season. And if he plays up to his potential, the Thunder could vault up the Western standings, after they won 40 games without any good bigs in 2022-23.

Sacramento Kings: 55

The 2022-23 Kings deserved their no. 3 seed and first playoff appearance in 17 years—but it doesn’t undermine their achievement, or their best-in-league-history offensive rating, to acknowledge that they also enjoyed extreme health. ESPN’s Kevin Pelton notes that Kings players lost just 55 games combined to injury or non-COVID illness last season, the league’s smallest amount, and none of Sacramento’s starters missed more than nine games. (To be fair, those numbers would have looked a lot different had All-Star center Domantas Sabonis not played through a thumb fracture.)

That dynamic sets up a pair of competing narrative possibilities for 2023-24. On the one hand, the Kings will benefit from an extra year of their core playing together in Mike Brown’s system, and many of their top players are still young; on the other hand, any smidge of bad luck could compromise one of their greatest strengths from a year ago. And in such a crowded Western Conference field, any regression to the injury mean could send the Kings tumbling down the standings.

Dallas Mavericks: 2

Only two Mavericks—Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving—made The Ringer’s Top 100 Players ranking this week, tied for the fewest of any Western Conference team. Even bottom-feeders like the Spurs, Rockets, and new-look Trail Blazers have more top-100 players than Dallas does.

Dallas’s top player, of course, is an MVP candidate, unlike those in San Antonio, Houston, or Portland. But it’s not as if Irving is an especially reliable no. 2, and the rest of the supporting cast around the Mavericks’ star is as weak as any in the West. After a disastrous play-in miss last season, they’ll need a true MVP effort from Luka to exceed middling expectations in 2023-24.

Atlanta Hawks: 33

The Hawks have been the NBA’s most mediocre team since their surprise conference finals trip three seasons ago. In 2021-22, they finished 43-39, good for ninth in the East. (They won the no. 8 seed in the play-in round.) In 2022-23, they finished 41-41, good for eighth in the East—though they jumped to no. 7 with a play-in win in Miami—and, even more remarkably, were within a game of .500 for a remarkable 33 games in a row, from mid-January through early April.

This graph shows how many games above or below .500 Atlanta was throughout last season, including playoffs. Note that the Hawks deviated from an even record by more than a game just once over the last half of the season (play-in and playoffs included).

The hope is that coach Quin Snyder—who, naturally, went 10-11 in the regular season after his midseason appointment—can provide a much-needed spark. But of course, Atlanta’s preseason over/under for wins is 41.5, the closest to a .500 prediction for any team.

Indiana Pacers: 7

Despite missing out on three postseasons in a row, the Pacers are a stealth playoff candidate for one simple reason: They’re a decent team when their All-Star point guard isn’t hurt or resting.

That much was true last year, as the Pacers posted a 28-28 record when Tyrese Haliburton played—the same winning percentage as the Hawks and Raptors, who reached the play-in tournament. The reason they faded from the race is that they went just 7-19 without Haliburton—the same winning percentage as the Rockets and Spurs, who tanked for lottery luck.

Bake in more games from Haliburton this season, help from new Pacer Bruce Brown, and some internal improvements from all the team’s youngsters, and the Pacers could leap over one of last season’s play-in teams to make some noise of their own this spring.

Photo by Eric Espada/NBAE via Getty Images

Brooklyn Nets: 30/60

How much stock should the Nets place in an end-of-season surge from a deadline acquisition?

Mikal Bridges’s usage rate increased from 19 percent in Phoenix to 30 percent in Brooklyn—and at the same time, his true shooting percentage also increased, from 57 percent to 61 percent. That’s not the pattern most NBA players exhibit: An increase in offensive burden usually leads to a decrease in efficiency, because it entails tougher shots and fiercer defenders.

The combination of volume and efficiency that Bridges displayed over his first 27 games as a Net is typically reserved for the league’s best no. 1 options. Only 11 players joined the 30/60 club over the full 2022-23 season, and all 11 are superstars:

Now the Nets will learn whether Bridges can sustain that pace over a full season—and if he can, it will go a long way toward reducing the sting of the failed Harden-Irving-Durant era.

Chicago Bulls: 28.9

The Bulls surprised with the NBA’s no. 5 defense last season, but failed to reach the playoffs because an offense led by three current or recent All-Stars ranked just 24th. A huge problem is Chicago’s aversion to 3-pointers, which runs counter to modern trends. The Bulls were the only team below 30 3-point attempts per game last season, at just 28.9.

Despite many claims about boosting their 3-point output in 2023-24, the Bulls haven’t looked all that different in the preseason. Chicago took 35 3s in its first preseason outing, but settled for 29 (not counting two overtime periods), 29, and 26 triples in its next three games, before jumping to 36 3s in its final preseason contest. Despite the disappointment of 2022-23, the Bulls largely ran it back this season—in personnel and, it appears, tactics as well.

Orlando Magic: 2012

Here are the first two sentences I wrote about the Magic in this piece last year:

This number is important for the Magic because 2012 is the last time their offense ranked in the top half of the league in efficiency. That summer, of course, the Magic traded Dwight Howard, and in the decade since, their offensive rating each year has ranked, per CtG: 27th, 29th, 27th, 17th, 28th, 25th, 22nd, 21st, 29th, 30th.

Add a 26th-place finish last season, even though Franz Wagner impressed as a sophomore and Paolo Banchero won Rookie of the Year. With those two franchise cornerstones in place, the Magic are on their way to building a winner—now, can they finally score at a decent clip, please?

Toronto Raptors: 94.5

In a disappointing season that ended with a loss in the play-in round, Toronto scored just 94.5 points per 100 possessions in the half court, per CtG, which ranked 25th. Only the Magic, Spurs, Pistons, Hornets, and Rockets—teams with five of the six worst records in the league—had a less efficient half-court offense.

And that was before the Raptors lost their point guard, as Fred VanVleet signed with Houston in free agency. Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, and Scottie Barnes are all excellent individual players, but the Raptors won’t return to contention until they figure out how to score as well against a set defense as they do in transition.

Utah Jazz: 51.5

For Utah’s long-term future, the two most important developments of last season were, first, Lauri Markkanen’s Most Improved Player trophy, and, second, Walker Kessler’s emergence as an elite rim protector as a rookie. The no. 22 pick, who went to Utah as part of the Gobert trade, proved a fine replacement for the three-time DPOY: Kessler held opponents to just 51.5 percent shooting within 6 feet of the rim, according to NBA Advanced Stats, the fourth-lowest mark among rotation players behind Giannis, Bismack Biyombo, and JJJ.

Moreover, Markkanen’s and Kessler’s skill sets complement each other perfectly on both ends of the court. The Jazz are still in a rebuilding phase, and they’re particularly weak in the backcourt, where they have a lot of shoot-first guards without any organizers. But they can figure out the perimeter as the rebuild continues; just a year in, they already know what the big man duo will look like for the next Jazz contender.

Charlotte Hornets: 2

The two best draft prospects of the past 15 years are Wembanyama and Anthony Davis, and an unlucky Charlotte franchise nabbed the no. 2 pick in both of those drafts. (At least Brandon Miller seems to have more potential than Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.) That just about sums up the state of existence for the most forgotten team in the NBA, which hasn’t won a single playoff series since the NBA returned to Charlotte with an expansion franchise in 2004-05. The last two times the Hornets even approached the playoffs, they allowed 132 and 144 points in play-in games, losing both by an average of 28 points.

Houston Rockets: 22.1

Last season’s Rockets had an average age (weighted by minutes played) of just 22.1, which made them the youngest team in NBA history. So some of their faults—like a penchant for turnovers and a deplorable defense—were understandable. But now they’re trying to shape up in a hurry, with the goal of winning more than 22 games for the first time in four years.

Fred VanVleet is here, to provide a steady hand in the backcourt. Dillon Brooks is here, for defensive purposes. (Brook Lopez was almost here, too, but the DPOY runner-up re-signed with Milwaukee.) And Ime Udoka is here, after a season away because he was fired for an improper workplace relationship in Boston. Houston’s future is still reliant on its many youngsters with promise, but the 2023-24 season should consist of a healthier mix of youth and experience, potential and present-day production.

Photos by Michael Gonzales/NBAE via Getty Images

San Antonio Spurs: 90

The Spurs are set up well for the future whether they win 10, 20, 30, or a surprise 40 games this season. They already hit the jackpot in 2023. And now, both the Spurs themselves and observers across the rest of the NBA world salivate about Victor Wembanyama’s generational potential.

In NBA.com’s annual GM survey, 90 percent of GMs this season picked Wembanyama as the 2023-24 rookie most likely to be the best player in five years. As I wrote last week, that’s the highest percentage any rookie has received on this question in more than two decades of the survey, besting the previous top three of Anthony Davis (87 percent), LeBron James (81 percent), and Kevin Durant (74 percent). That’s a nice set of comps.

Detroit Pistons: 30.4

In each of the past four drafts, the Pistons selected a guard with a top-seven pick: Killian Hayes seventh in 2020, Cade Cunningham first in 2021, Jaden Ivey fifth in 2022, and Ausar Thompson fifth in 2023. But even a few years in, it’s unclear whether those perimeter players can actually fit together on a higher-caliber team.

Namely, Detroit’s youngsters have yet to prove they can space the floor as a competent offense in the modern NBA must. The first three members of that quartet have combined for a career 3-point accuracy of just 30.4 percent in their NBA careers to date, and Thompson’s greatest weakness as a prospect is a poor outside shot.

Cunningham has the most potential, both as a shooter and as an overall prospect. The former top pick made 40 percent of his 3s as a freshman at Oklahoma State, and his 84 percent free throw stroke suggests considerable innate ability. Yet with the acknowledgement that he missed most of his sophomore season due to injury, he’s struggled with his jumper thus far, which casts a broader shadow over his future as a no. 1 option. Over the past two seasons, 166 players have attempted at least 1,000 shots, and Cunningham ranks 162nd in true shooting percentage. (Hayes ranks 166th.)

Portland Trail Blazers: 80

The Trail Blazers didn’t just trade Lillard this summer; in the same deal, they also parted with Jusuf Nurkic and Nassir Little, and they’d previously waived Trendon Watford and let Drew Eubanks leave in free agency. All those players had been with Portland for multiple seasons—and with their departures, only one such player remains. Anfernee Simons, with 273 career games over five seasons, is the only remaining Trail Blazer with more than one season or 80 career games with the franchise. There’s no starker illustration of the changing of Portland’s guard(s).

Washington Wizards: 29.3

The Wizards are widely projected to be the worst team in the NBA this season, as they traded Beal and are set to embark on a true rebuild. Their preseason over/under is three wins lower than any other team’s.

And yet! The Wizards are 3-0 in the preseason with a net rating of plus-29.3, which is the best in the league by more than 10 ticks. Now, is that margin flavored just a tad by a 63-point win over an Australian team from Cairns? Yes it is. But still, 3-0! With additional wins over actual NBA teams from Charlotte and New York! Maybe the Wizards won’t be the worst team in the league this season. Or maybe they’ll just become the NBA’s version of the 2008 Detroit Lions, who infamously went 4-0 in the preseason before losing all 16 regular-season games. New Wizard Jordan Poole—who exploded for 41 points in the Wizards’ most recent preseason game—seems destined to challenge for the scoring title either way.