Picking All-NBA teams for the first quarter of the 2023-24 season

After a quarter of the NBA season, the league has started to take shape. The Minnesota Timberwolves are a surprise contender, the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets look deadly when whole, the Milwaukee Bucks are an unconvincing 16-7, and the Detroit Pistons and San Antonio Spurs may never win again. There is still a lot of basketball to be played, but the season sample is large enough that you can start reading into it, and that goes for individual players as well. 

While the NBA Most Valuable Player award is the most coveted individual accomplishment, making an NBA All-NBA team is where the money is at. There are three routes to qualify for a Supermax contract and earn 35 percent of a team’s salary cap, and making the All-NBA team is the path of least resistance.

To qualify for a Supermax, a player needs to have been in the league for at least seven seasons and have won the MVP in any of the three previous seasons, win Defensive Player of the Year in the prior season, or two of the previous three, or made an All-NBA team in the prior season or two of the previous three. It’s a lot easier to be one of the 15 best players in the league than it is to be the best, which makes the All-NBA team the most financially consequential distinction for just about every player in the league. 

The 2023-24 season will see a few much-needed changes to All-NBA voting. The first and most discussed is the 65 games played (79.2 percent of the season) threshold to qualify for end-of-the-season awards. This never should have been an issue, but voters had trouble leaving well-established mega-stars off their ballots even if they missed 25 games — I guess 55 games of LeBron James is more valuable than 71 from Pascal Siakam. 

The next change is the ballot is now positionless, which can be called the Nikola Jokic-Joel Embiid or Wilt Chamberlain-Bill Russell rule. Before, every ballot had to include one center, two forwards, and two guards because someone wanted the All-NBA teams to play a competitive theoretical game of basketball. What this led to was the top two vote-getters in MVP voting, if they both played center, to be on different All-NBA teams, even though they were considered the two best players in the league. 

The quarter-season All-NBA teams will represent these two changes. Because no one will have hit 65 games played yet, we’ll use the 79.2 percent of games played as a threshold. Every team has played between 21 and 23 games, so 17 games played will be the games played threshold, with a little wiggle room.

Honorable Mentions aka Fourth Team All-NBA

Kawhi Leonard, Jalen Brunson, Trae Young, Kristaps Porzingis, De’Aaron Fox

Kawhi Leonard has been playing much better as of late, but his slow start to the season is holding him back. Over his first 11 games, he averaged 21 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 2.0 steals per game on 46.2 percent shooting. He’s perked up over his last 12, averaging 25.5 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 1.2 steals on 53.8 percent shooting, and should that hold, he’ll have an excellent case for the real award at the end of the season. Most crucially, he has played in all 23 of the Clippers games. 

Jalen Brunson has been excellent for the New York Knicks and is in the midst of a career-best 3-point shooting season. His 6.7 attempts and 44.6 percent conversion rate are both career bests, but his 2-point efficiency has waned a bit, and his points per game of 24.6 and assists per game of 5.6 are below the standard. Brunson probably won’t make a run for the end-of-the-season award, but he’s been excellent and deserves a shout-out. 

Trae Young is once again doing Trae Young things. He’s piloting an elite offense, the Hawks are fifth in offensive rating at 119.5, and he is the path of least resistance on defense, 28th in defensive rating. However, Young’s offensive mastery cannot be denied. Few players so consistently lead their team to elite offenses, but he’ll have a hard time making All-NBA teams so long as he’s one of the worst defensive players in the league. Welcome to the Trae Young experience.

Kristaps Porzingis has been excellent, but he’s a casualty of the games played threshold. His 17 games played out of 22 puts him right beneath the cutoff, but that shouldn’t damper Celtics fans enthusiasm. He’s been hyper-efficient within the arc, and his 3-point shooting at the center position has been paramount to the Celtics’ 118.5 offensive rating. Throw in excellent rim protection as the anchor to the league’s fourth-rated defense, and turning Marcus Smart into Porzingis is looking like one of the best moves of the offseason. 

De’Aaron Fox, like Porzingis, has missed too much time to make the quarter-season All-NBA team. He’s played in 17 of the Kings’ 22 games and has torched opposition backcourts for 29.5 points per game. He’s having the best offensive season of his career, and it shows up on the court as well. With Fox on the court, the Kings have an offensive rating of 119.5, but when he sits, it slumps to 110.5. If he can stay healthy and maintain his current pace, he’ll have a great chance to make his second consecutive All-NBA team.