The time has come. The time to ignore all your homework for the night and watch your favorite team clash with their rivals. The time to furiously check how your fantasy basketball team is doing every five minutes. The NBA regular season is back, and the landscape of the league looks drastically different since the Denver Nuggets were crowned as NBA champions in June.
No offseason is complete without huge trades and free agency chaos, and the past offseason was no exception. Stars from around the league now find themselves suiting up for a new team, representing a different city, and playing with unfamiliar teammates, all in the hopes of having a chance to compete for the championship. In the Eastern Conference, The Milwaukee Bucks acquired seven-time All-Star Damian Lillard to team up with superstar Giannis Antetokoumpo, while five-time All-Defensive Team member Jrue Holiday landed with the Boston Celtics. In the Western Conference, both the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Clippers have gathered three perennial All-Stars on their teams, with the Suns adding Bradley Beal and the Clippers James Harden.
On paper, having two or three All-Stars on the same team seems like a cheat code. However, while they may be great players individually, it is hard to say how well they will work together. Avid NBA analyst and Pinewood girls basketball Head Coach Doc Scheppler still has his doubts on how these new star teammates will perform together.
You don’t just put players together, regardless of how great they are, and expect them to be a great team,” Scheppler said. “[Basketball] is a team sport, not an individual sport.”
Superteams can be controversial. While bringing several explosive talents together can make for more entertaining games, it can also take away from teamwork and chemistry, two things that make basketball especially fun to watch. It can certainly be boring to watch star players hogging the ball and trying to do everything themselves.
“Superteams take away from the beauty of team basketball,” Scheppler said. “For example, the 2021 Brooklyn Nets, with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and Harden. You can only have so many ball dominant players on the same team.”
Whether or not fans like it, these new superteams will completely alter the balance of power in the upcoming season. With all that has changed, multiple teams have emerged as contenders for the title. In the East, the Bucks and Celtics appear as the frontrunners. In the West, a wide range of different teams have a shot at winning it all.
“Look at the West,” Scheppler said, “There are like ten teams that look like strong contenders!”
