Buying or Selling Hottest Takes from NBA's 1st Week

Just a single week into the 2022-23 NBA season, conditions are perfect for rampant overreactions.

Then again, season-long trends have to start somewhere, and a few will be rooted in fiery-hot or frigid starts that the currently tiny sample size begs you to dismiss.

Lessons are already being learned about how this campaign will take shape, but it's hard to tell which narratives are built to last and which will be debunked over the coming weeks or months. Or rather, it would be tricky to tell if not for the trusty smell test, which we're applying to some of the spiciest takes dispersed so far.

If you've followed this league long enough, you know that every 82-game trek features its fair share of twists and turns. Still, this was not a sentence I expected to read after the first week: "It does feel like maybe Utah ought to see how good this group is before tearing it down in the name of landing top NBA prospect Victor Wembanyama," ESPN's Kevin Pelton wrote.

The Jazz spent this summer trading four starters—including All-Stars Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert—for pick-heavy packages meant to brighten the future. The Salt Lake City forecast immediately called for a downpour of losses, which was hardly the worst news in the world given all of the glowing reports about the 2023 draft class.

So, naturally, the Jazz spent their first three games slaying three Western Conference contenders, starting with a 21-point drubbing of the Denver Nuggets. The results were jarring in a way that made you wonder if we all miscalculated what this club could do. Was the franchise really saying "Tanks, but no tanks" (sorry) to the Wembanyama sweepstakes?

Nope.

Clearly, this roster has some talent left. Too much of it, actually. It's one thing to invest in up-and-comers like Lauri Markkanen (an early entry in the Most Improved Player race) and Collin Sexton and let them run wild. It's quite another to watch 30-somethings like Mike Conley, Kelly Olynyk and Rudy Gay destroy lottery odds for what could be a tremendous draft.

Even before the front office acts, the regression gods might do some damage control on this tank-job-gone-awry. That process already started Monday night, when they crashed back to earth—fittingly in Space City—and delivered the rebuilding Houston Rockets their first win of the season.

Verdict: Hard sell. Utah's 3-0 start could be a distant memory in no time.

After last season's playoff breakthrough, the Cavaliers could have taken the slow-and-steady route toward championship contention, but they reached for the fast-forward button instead. When talks stalled between the Jazz and New York Knicks on a Mitchell megadeal, Cleveland pounced and forked over a fortune—three first-round picks, two pick swaps and three players—to get him.

Even Mitchell's biggest believers in the Cavs front office must be blown away by his start. He has an even 100 points through his first three games, plus 21 assists, 16 boards and six steals. All three levels of his 49.3/42.3/87.5 are career-best rates. Among his many other personal bests are a 28.0 player efficiency rating and .278 win shares per 48 minutes.

All-Star acquisitions aren't always guaranteed to get off to smooth starts, but Mitchell already has the backing of this young, hungry roster.

"He's just a good dude. That's what it boils down to," All-Star center Jarrett Allen said, per The Athletic's Kelsey Russo. "... He doesn't boast about his accomplishments, he is one of the hardest workers every single game in the gym. It's easy to root for a guy like that and easy to follow somebody's lead like that."

Mitchell can take this group places it hasn't been, and the rest of this roster could allow him to reach heights he never scaled in Salt Lake City.

Darius Garland hasn't played since suffering an eye injury on Opening Night. Allen, Evan Mobley and Caris LeVert are all finding their offensive fits on the fly. The avenues to improvement are many, which says plenty for a squad that's already one of only two teams with top-five efficiency ranks on offense and defense.

Verdict: Optimistically buying. The Cavs aren't suddenly championship favorites, but they could elbow their way into the East's top tier by season's end.

This is the fourth season since Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving joined forces in Brooklyn, and all the Nets have to show for their dynamic duo is a single playoff series victory.

Their upside might be both obvious and enormous, but at a certain point, you have to see that success to believe it, right?

Well, the team has trudged to a 1-2 start and posted a minus-9.3 scoring differential that trails everyone but the Detroit Pistons. Ben Simmons has nearly as many fouls (14) as points (17). Irving and Durant have gone a combined 13-of-43 from three (30.2 percent). The defense has hemorrhaged an alarming—and league-worst—124.7 points per 100 possessions.

Not good.

But not necessarily season-defining, either.

The offense will get better, and it's already a top-10 unit. Irving and Durant will collectively catch fire from three. Joe Harris, a career 43.9 percent three-point shooter who's hitting 33.3 percent so far, will find his touch, too. Seth Curry will see the floor at some point, and T.J. Warren should as well. If some off-the-bounce verve is needed, sophomore scoring guard Cam Thomas could rejoin the rotation.

The defense isn't so easily fixed, but it shouldn't be bad enough to make your eyes bleed. There are certainly sieves on this squad, but there's also an all-purpose stopper in Simmons, a perimeter pest in Royce O'Neale and a center who can protect the basket and switch away from it in Nic Claxton. Maybe it's not a recipe for greatness, but decent might be good enough with this kind of offensive firepower.

Again, potential only goes so far for a team that has failed to deliver much production, but abandoning hope for a group with this much talent is silly.

Verdict: Hard sell. It's far too early to give up on this team, and even if it gets to that point, the front office has a few pieces it can throw around on the trade market for reinforcements (Thomas, Day'Ron Sharpe, a veteran scoring guard or future second-round picks).

As the Portland Trail Blazers were crashing and burning through last season's stretch run to protect a pick that eventually netted them Shaedon Sharpe, Damian Lillard wanted to make one thing clear.

"I just need y'all to know one thing: This will not continue," Lillard told the Portland faithful on Fan Appreciation Night. "Next year, we gonna come back better than we've been."

He wasn't kidding.

The Blazers are one of two teams with an unblemished record, and they've played twice as many games as the other (the 2-0 Milwaukee Bucks). They've also played a pair of heavyweight contenders (the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets) and a pair of playoff hopefuls (the Sacramento Kings and Los Angeles Lakers), so they aren't just beating up on bottom-feeders.

Instead, Portland is getting MVP-caliber play from Lillard (33.3 points on 50.0/40.0/91.7 shooting) and sufficient support from his supporting cast. Anfernee Simons and Jerami Grant have each had a pair of 20-point outbursts. Josh Hart has routinely touched all parts of the stat sheet. Jusuf Nurkic has locked down the interior. Even Sharpe has flashed at times.

It's early, but the offense and defense are both operating at top-10 levels of efficiency. The former could elevate even higher as Simons and Nurkic find their touch. The latter might have some upward mobility once Gary Payton II makes his Portland debut following offseason core muscle surgery.

The Blazers might be here to stay, if Lillard sustains his superstar production, Simons and Hart have career campaigns, Nurkic stays healthy and the defense doesn't fall off a cliff. That's a lot of ifs, but Portland has a chance to make this season special—even if it doesn't wind up being the best of Lillard's career.

Verdict: Begrudgingly sell. The Blazers look pretty legit, but they've made a conference finals run with Lillard before and a ton would need to go right for them to push that far.

Is it possible to capture consecutive Most Improved Player awards? While that won't happen for Morant, some of his numbers have seen a bigger jump this season than they did during his award-winning 2021-22 campaign.

While his scoring has surged to an Association-best—and wholly ridiculous—35.3 points per game, his stat sheet has soared highest in advanced metrics. Like turning his already great 24.4 player efficiency rating into a gargantuan, human-cheat-code-esque 35.2. Or nearly doubling his win shares per 48 minutes (.171 to .311). Or skyrocketing his true shooting percentage from 57.5 to 68.5.

Oh, and remember how last season Memphis managed to thrive without him? Well, this year the Grizzlies are 26.6 points better per 100 possessions with him than without.

No wonder he's drawing hyperbolic praise from players who typically elicit hyperbolic admiration from others.

Before a recent matchup with Memphis, Kevin Durant told reporters that Morant is "doing some stuff that we've never seen before." After Morant steered the Grizzlies past the Nets with 38 points (on 54.5/66.7/90.9 shooting), eight rebounds and seven assists (against two turnovers), Durant dubbed him "the most marketable guy in our league—the face of our league going forward."

If the MVP award were dispersed today, Morant might win in a landslide. And that's saying plenty given how strong players like Mitchell, Lillard, Stephen Curry, Jayson Tatum, Devin Booker, Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo have started. Holding pole position over the next six months will be tricky, but there are reasons to believe Morant is up for the challenge.

Verdict: Boldly buying. It's more likely than not someone else captures MVP, but Morant's numbers, potential to keep improving and position as the solo star on a good-to-great Grizzlies team are all award-winning ingredients.

Statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference and NBA.com and current through games played on Oct. 24.

Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @ZachBuckleyNBA.