The NBA season is just over a month away, and we're ramping up our season preview offerings with a look at the most important players on every team, division by division. These aren't necessarily the best players on each team — they're the pivot points, the ones who could make the biggest difference between success and 82 games of grinding frustration.
Atlanta Hawks — Jalen Johnson
Johnson played just 36 games last season before a torn labrum knocked him out for the rest of the year. But what he gave the Atlanta Hawks was eye-popping — 18.9 points, 10.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.0 blocks per game. Statistically, it was a meaningful jump over his breakout campaign the year before, but it was also the second straight season in which injuries limited him to fewer than 60 games, which means the full extent of how his impact can shape the Hawks is still mostly a hypothetical.
If he's healthy this season, Johnson is a threat to make first-team All Defense, an incredibly mobile forward with the size to bang in the post and the quickness and length to chase smaller ball-handlers around the perimeter. The Hawks are loaded with versatile defenders and, if not for Trae Young, would be one of the best in the league on paper. But Johnson is the only one who really brings that versatility at the 4 and could be the one who holds it all together.
On offense, he's always been a terrific finisher, adept at turning his defensive disruptions into fast breaks with the ability to handle the ball, find open shooters or attack in the open court. He's not quite reliable beyond the arc, but he's his 42 percent of his long 2-pointers over the past two seasons. He's also rapidly progressed as a playmaking hub from the elbow, in the short roll or even handling beyond the arc against bigger, slower defenders.
This Hawks roster is loaded with versatile, two-way role players around Young and will still count on Trae to make everything work on offense. But Johnson should be the centerpiece of their defense and has more star potential on offense than anyone else besides Young right now. If he can play 75 games and produce like he did last season, the Hawks are firmly a playoff team and perhaps battling for a top-four seed. If he can't stay on the floor, or can't sustain his production from the past two seasons, then this Hawks team probably isn't all that different from the versions the past four seasons that have struggled to break 0.500.
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Charlotte Hornets — LaMelo Ball
I will admit that watching LaMelo Ball mostly makes my brain hurt. Once or twice a game, he will pull off something incredibly fun that I've legitimately never seen before. And once or twice a game, he'll make a basketball mistake that I'd like to never see again.
But, aesthetics and decision-making aside, he is absolutely an impact player. He gets buckets, finds his teammates in creative ways and conjures offensive advantages out of thin air. He just turned 24 and already has career averages of 21.0 points, 7.4 assists and 6.0 rebounds per game. The problem is, he's only played 231 of a possible 400 games in his career, and just 105 total over the past three years.
Across five seasons, the Charlotte Hornets are minus-2.6 per 100 possessions when he's on the court and minus-7.5 without him. They've just never had him on the floor consistently enough to develop a young core around him or figure out the right kind of veterans to actually support what he's trying to do.
Not much has changed on that front. Brandon Miller and Kon Knueppel have upside and Collin Sexton and Grant Williams are solid rotation players. But without Ball, this is in contention for the worst roster in the league. If he's here and healthy and breaking my brain, though, the Hornets have a real chance to make the playoffs.
Miami Heat — Davion Mitchell
I don't know what to make of the Miami Heat this season. Their ceiling feels incredibly clear, and it's hard to imagine them really pushing teams like the Knicks, Cavs or Magic this season. The Hawks and Pistons may be a step ahead of them in both star power and depth, and even with injuries and age, the Bucks, Pacers and Celtics look better on paper.
The team that's here is familiar and possibly fading. Norman Powell is coming off a career year, but he's also 32 and an unrestricted free agent next summer. Andrew Wiggins is 30, clearly on the wrong end of his prime and under contract for just one more season — a player option. Tyler Herro is eligible for an extension starting Oct. 1, and it's not clear how much the Heat will want to commit to a core of he and Bam Adebayo, the latter of whom is owed roughly $160 million over the next three years after this one.
The Heat's best moments over the past few years have come from Jimmy Butler and a coalescence of chaos. While this roster has its appeal, I'm not sure about the upside or where a similar font of chaos could come from.
Davion Mitchell is the one exception.
Acquired by the Heat in last year's Butler trade, Mitchell was a revelation at the end of the season — averaging 10.3 points, 5.3 assists, 2.7 rebounds and 1.4 steals in 30 games. He's a relentless defender at the point of attack. He's grown by leaps as bounds as a creator and has improved his 3-point shooting every season, all the way up to 44.7 percent after joining the Heat.
Mitchell is not a star and may end up coming off the bench behind Herro and Powell. But he's the one guy on this team who always brings the belligerent aggression and confidence they used to get from Butler. If there's a wild card on this team, someone who can transform them into something way more than just a sum of their parts, it's Mitchell.
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Orlando Magic — Desmond Bane
If you wanted to pick one picture to summarize the Orlando Magic offense last season, this could certainly do it.
That's Paolo Banchero driving off a pick-and-roll with the screen set by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. You'll notice four Warriors defenders with a foot in the paint and a fifth close enough to be functionally the same. Franz Wagner is way out of frame toward half court trying to keep his defender out of the picture, but Jimmy Butler is more than comfortable dropping down for a triple-team on the ball.
Caldwell-Pope, ostensibly the best shooter on the team and last season's big offseason acquisition to solve their spacing problems, is completely ignored by both Curry and Green. Wagner is no threat that far from the basket, and (let's be honest) wouldn't be even if he were standing right at the arc. Wendell Carter Jr. is at least drawing some attention from his defender, but not nearly enough to pull him away from the paint. Cole Anthony is the only Magic player who keeps his defender close, but Brandin Podziemski isn't concerned enough to stop guarding him with the back of his head.
Now it's Desmond Bane's job to change all that.
The newest member of the Magic is, legitimately, one of the best shooters in the league — 41.6 percent over the past five seasons, better than Steph Curry, Jamal Murray, Karl-Anthony Towns or Kyrie Irving. And he did it on an average of 6.3 attempts per game. But he's not just a spot-up floor-spacer like Caldwell-Pope, and he can do more than just leverage the gravity of his shooting ability against closeouts.
He scored in the 70th percentile as the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll last season. He shot 52.5 percent on 10.5 drives per game as well. Bane is a high-level complementary creator who adds an entirely new dimension to the Magic. Throw in the fact that he takes nothing away from their elite defense and Bane could be the difference between the Magic being good and great this year.
Washington Wizards — Alex Sarr
Some rosters are top-heavy, some are built on a wide base of depth. The Washington Wizards are basically a straight line: CJ McCollum, Corey Kispert and Khris Middleton could make the Wizards frisky and keep them in the Play-In race, but this season is still very much about player development and figuring out what they actually have with this young roster.
Cam Whitmore has untapped potential, but there's also a reason he couldn't stick in the Rockets rotation. Bilal Coulibaly is becoming increasingly interesting on the wing with his two-way versatility, but he also made just 30.6 percent of his jumpers last season, regardless of distance. Bub Carrington showed he could stuff the box score as a rookie but shot just 40.1 percent from the field. Again, there's lots of potential, but still no one who can consistently create advantages in the half court or score efficiently as an offensive centerpiece. Which leaves us with Alex Sarr.
The No. 2 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft put up solid numbers as a rookie but — stop me if you see a theme developing — shot 39.4 percent from the field and 30.8 percent from beyond the arc. He's no Karl-Anthony Towns, but you can at least see the outlines of how a team built around a better version of him would work. He has the size, mobility and instincts to be a defensive centerpiece.
On offense, he needs to use (or be allowed to use) his skill set differently. Attempting essentially the same number of shots in spot-up situations as he did as the roll man in the pick-and-roll is coaching malpractice. But he's already a very good finisher and has some passing chops that could really open the floor for him. The Wizards should be spamming the two-man game with him and Carrington, putting Kispert, McCollum and Middleton around them and letting Sarr find the holes in the defense.
If he begins to figure it out, the Wizards might just have a centerpiece to start developing pieces around. If he struggles or regresses, then they're still just a big lump of clay spinning on the wheel and waiting to be shaped.