50 reasons to be excited about the 2018-19 NBA season

As we head into another NBA season, many fans are kind of writing the whole thing off because the Warriors seem predestined to win their 3rd championship in a row and their 4th in 5 years. And yeah, even though I myself wrote a piece positing why it’s foolish to just award Golden State the Larry O’Brien Trophy before the season even begins, it also seems kind of recklessly contrarian to pick against them at the moment. They’re very good.

For many fans, though, this raises the question of why they should care about the season at all if we already know how it’s going to end. Well, it’s a cliche that your fake deep friend who read On the Road several times in high school probably posts on Facebook every other week, but when it comes to the NBA season, the journey is just as important as the destination. With that in mind, here are 50 reasons that I am personally excited for the season to begin.

50. To see how J.R. Smith opts to cover up his Supreme tattoo every game. I’m personally hoping he changes it up from night to night, but we’ll see.

49. After adding Dwight Howard to an already combustible Washington locker room, it will be very interesting to see how this team finds a new way to implode this year.

48. Boogie’s coming back! Not imminently, but at some point, and I’m very excited and you should be as well.

47. After four decades worth of Clippers games, Ralph Lawler is retiring at the end of the season so make sure you appreciate all the “Bingo’s” and “Oh me, oh my’s” a little bit extra this year.

46. The Sacramento Kings have a truly ungodly and unwieldy amount of big men and I for one cannot wait to see how they’re deployed. Will Marvin Bagley III play some shooting guard? Will Skal initiate the offense? Will they win 30 games?

45. Kawhi is healthy and in Canada. At least one of those things is worth celebrating.

44. Kyle Lowry’s smile

43. Doncic and Dennis, the Mavericks’ young backcourt are gonna be fun as hell. That court vision matched with that athleticism is going to be a potent combination, and hey, even if it’s not, it’ll still be captivating.

42. Trae Young will have the greenest of green lights and while there will be some 3-18 nights sprinkled in there, it seems near certain that there will be one wild 30 point, 10 assist game that will make putting up with the lowlights and purchasing League Pass all worth it.

41. Tracking the development of Markelle Fultz’s season should be fun and enjoyable rather than depressing and weird and conspiratorial — a definite improvement, in my opinion.

40. Mike D’Antoni’s wearing glasses now

39. There’s a non-zero chance that Ben Simmons will shoot a 3. He probably won’t, though. Let’s not lie to ourselves.

38. Trail Blazers rookie Anfernee Simons recently said in a Reddit AMA that “Water is not wet. Whatever water gets on is wet.” Fingers crossed we get more insights like this and other players throughout the season.

37. There’s no telling what hats Carmelo Anthony will don this season and I don’t want to miss a single one.

36. Steph Curry is going to do Steph Curry stuff.

35. If anything has defined the NBA over the last few years — well, apart from a ton of 3-pointers and the hegemony of the Golden State Warriors — it’s been tons and tons of player movement. It seems like a safe bet that this season will be no exception and that several players will be traded with little warning, shifting the balance of power in the league yet again.

34. The Magic’s front court of Mo Bamba, Aaron Gordon, and Jonathan Isaac is long and athletic as one could imagine and while they may not contain an absolute ton of definite basketball skills, they should be a blast to watch if nothing else while providing at least a few highlights every night. And apparently Bamba can shoot 3’s too? Sensational.

33. This will be the first full season of the Andre Drummond/Blake Griffin pairing in Detroit. Will the two All-Stars mesh and return the Pistons to the Playoffs or just happen to be on the same team and get lots of empty numbers?

32. How will the Cavaliers play with literally no expectations? Will the loss of LeBron haunt them and place a psychic burden upon them or will they feel freed up and play with a sense of joy that has eluded them the last few years? I’m pulling for the latter, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

31. CJ McCollum and the Trail Blazers are trying to find playoff success after losing in the first round 3 of the last 4 seasons. Will they succeed or will McCollum have to report back to Jennifer, forlornly telling her that his efforts weren’t quite enough?

30. LeBron is on the Lakers now if you’re into that sort of thing

29. Thibodeau seems to be losing his mind, or at least a firm hold on his job, and watching that play out is bound to be a compelling mess.

28. Hubie Brown is still calling games for ESPN and he’s great and I wish he was my grandfather and I love listening to him.

27. Pop is good for at least an entertaining in-game interview or four.

26. Bogdan Bogdanovic may honestly be the Sacramento Kings’ best player if that’s your fancy.

25. I know there’s already been a ton of memes and jokes about it already, so I almost didn’t even want to mention it, but seriously the fact that Michael Beasley, JaVale McGee, and Rajon Rondo are all on the same team really is something.

24. Who will take an Oladipo-esque leap this year? Anyone?

23. This year is Dwyane Wade’s retirement tour. He’s not going to be great this season, but count on at least one glorious game where he puts up 37 points leading to people rapturously and incorrectly talking about how he’s still got it and could play for five more years.

22. Russell Westbrook is still going to be trying to create a black hole or some sort of geographic anomaly or something through sheer force of will.

21. Ricky Rubio grew out his hair last year and I think it really works for him. He still looks sweet and like someone you’d like to grab an ice cream sundae with, but there’s an undercurrent of danger there now, a nod to the fact that he’s no longer the cherub-faced boy who entered the league seven years ago. He’s more than a pretty face and a great mane of hair though. He still has some of the best court vision around and can run an offense as beautifully — if not necessarily as well — as anyone else in the league.

20. You have to watch the Celtics this year. Not only do they project to have one of the best rotations in the league with a mix of established stars and promising young players — several of which are very cool — it’s also the only way you’ll be able to make any sense of Weird Celtics Twitter.

19. Another season, another 82 games trying to parse Brett Brown’s accent — an odd mix of Australia and New England that has yet to stop disorienting me every time I hear him speak.

18. Victor Oladipo is apparently really good now, so that’s good.

17. Myles Turner might be really good soon, so that’s potentially good.

16. Red Panda is still doing her thing.

15. This may be the last year to hype up Nikola Jokic and seem prescient for doing so.

14. The Grit N Grind Grizzlies aren’t entirely dead, even though Tony Allen and Zach Randolph are gone and after a season Memphis finished with the second-worst record in the NBA. There’s still Mike Conley Jr. and Marc Gasol carrying the torch and now, they’ve added Jaren Jackson Jr. who is a tremendously athletic defender who should both invigorate and add a new and exciting element to a waylaid Grizzlies team.

13. The Suns are a mess, but they’re a mess full of young players with supposed potential so in spite of whatever growing pains there are to endure — and there will be a lot of those — watch them for those intermittent moments of transcendence, where it looks like the future is bright and that the 2025 title is already locked up for Phoenix.

12. Steven Adams is bound to give at least two very entertaining answers to otherwise rote questions every month.

11. If for some dumb reason you’ve been making lots of jokes about how hard Giannis Antetokounmpo’s name is to spell, he’s going to have a lot of games that just make you look dumb for not knowing how to spell it. Also, he’s playing under an honestly decent coach for the first time in his career which promises to be a good thing.

10. The Pelicans found a formula that worked for them against the Blazers, sweeping them in the first round of the Playoffs. They’ve brought back almost all of that core and also added Julius Randle. And sure, the West is loaded, but no other team has Anthony Davis, and this may be the best supporting cast he’s had in his young career so far.

9. The Bobi and Tobi Show is an honest to God thing and it’s delightful.

8. The Woj vs. Shams rivalry may be the best one in the league right now and watching who scoops who is going to be an interesting, though also kind of nerdy, subplot for NBA Twitter all year long.

7. Kemba Walker is having his prime wasted by playing on a mediocre to bad Hornets team, having only made the Playoffs twice in his seven-year career, which sucks. On the other hand, depressing as it is to watch the Hornets in general, he is one of the most exciting players to watch in the league, making the Hornets worth seeking out on League Pass on those nights you’re not sure what to watch.

6. What random celebrities will show up at courtside this year? Will Mitt Romney make an encore appearance at a Jazz game wearing a personalized jersey? Will Nick Nolte or Nicolas Cage show up at a mid-January Kings game? Will that dude with the Lakers chain show up again? Everything’s on the table here, folks.

5. What are the Clippers going to be like this year? I’m seriously asking because I don’t really feel like I know. I do know I’m excited to watch them, though.

4. The Playoff races are going to be absolutely bonkers this year, and also very high stakes for a lot of team’s long-term futures. There are probably about 20 teams that will view this season as a failure if they fail to make the Playoffs, which is going to be very bad news for a few teams once April rolls around.

3. For the first time since Luka Doncic was a preteen, a team led by LeBron James will not represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals this year. The journey to fill that vacuum promises to be one of the more interesting storylines this season, even if the winner is merely filling the role of sacrificial lamb for Golden State.

2. Which teams will rise from the mediocrity of the Eastern Conference to assert themselves? After Toronto, Philadelphia, and Boston, there’s a definite drop off and it will be exciting (and also likely a bit enervating) to see teams like Detroit, Washington, and Charlotte fight for their place in the Playoffs.

1. It’s the NBA. I mean, come on, it’s great.