With the NBA trade deadline coming up in a few weeks, teams are looking to round out their roster in order to make a stretch run. The Celtics are firmly in the mix in the Eastern Conference.
When the San Antonio Spurs finally missed the playoffs last season, there was a sense that they would be forced to dive deeper into the youth movement and rebuild. Dejounte Murray and Derrick White are two-way budding stars, and the oozing potential of Keldon Johnson is not something to overlook.
Even at age 34, Kyle Lowry is still one of the most impactful players in the league. Even when he's struggling for the most part of a game, Lowry will always find a way to make the winning plays when it matters most. You can't put a price on a player with that kind of winning mentality.
No other two-time MVP has had to face the level of scrutiny that Giannis Antetokounmpo has thus far in his career. Popular narratives surrounding the Greek Freak in mainstream media have since gone sour, focusing on his unflattering history of playoff performances or his lack of shooting.
Even before they became the top names for an MVP selection, Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic have always, for better or worse, been compared to one another.
While it is true that the NBA has become a guard-driven league, the growing versatility of bigger frontcourt players is steadily stealing the spotlight. It is a much different era of basketball nowadays, and gone are All-Star centers who dominate mainly from the post.
The Denver Nuggets were the story of the NBA bubble. Arriving with no backcourt, they played five-centre line-ups, they went into the playoffs without Will Barton, yet they still made it to the Conference Finals. Denver was the first team in NBA history to overcome two 3-1 deficits in a single postseason.