Every NBA Team's Biggest Question After 1 Month

The first month of the 2021-22 NBA season has answered a handful of pressing questions.

Are the Golden State Warriors true-blue title contenders? Emphatically, yes.

Was the Chicago Bulls' bold jettisoning of first-round draft picks and cap space a much better plan than it seemed at the time? Also, surprisingly, affirmative.

Plenty remains uncertain, though, and even the notions we think we're clear on could get hazy. A lot can change with roughly 80 percent of the season still unplayed. At this early juncture, these are the biggest questions facing all 30 NBA teams.

All the Atlanta Hawks had to do was start strong.

Had they managed that, preferably while flashing the two-way capability that helped them reach the Eastern Conference Finals last spring, we could have put doubts about that ahead-of-schedule postseason run to bed.

Instead, the Hawks are sporting a losing record and a bottom-five defensive rating. Opponents are attacking Trae Young relentlessly, per Kirk Goldsberry of ESPN, and the Nate McMillan effect is conspicuously present, as the Hawks now sustain themselves on one of the heaviest mid-range diets in the league.

This year's Hawks look a lot like the team that got Lloyd Pierce fired after starting 14-20 last season. But with Young, John Collins and a stable of forwards and wings that is still deep despite the absence of De'Andre Hunter (wrist surgery), Atlanta is better than it has shown so far. At least we think so.

They have to prove it all over again.

The Boston Celtics defense has been among the best in the league since surrendering 128 points to the Chicago Bulls on Nov. 1. It's had to be that good to offset the absence of Jaylen Brown (hamstring) and, just as critically, Jayson Tatum's alarming slump.

The 23-year-old two-time All-Star is posting the lowest effective field-goal percentage of his career and is getting to the rim less often than ever. For all the growth Tatum has made during his brilliant young career, it's jarring to note that his rim-attempt frequency has declined every season since he was a rookie.

It's no surprise that Boston's offensive rating is firmly entrenched in the bottom 10.

Maybe Tatum's drives are less effective because he, like many other call-seeking attackers, isn't hearing whistles as often as last year. Perhaps his habit of shoving off with his elbow to create space is too easy for defenders to anticipate. Undisclosed injury? Unfamiliarity with new head coach Ime Udoka's system?

Whatever the cause, Tatum isn't playing up to expectations. Boston has to figure out why.

The Brooklyn Nets are doing fine, perched near the top of the East with one of the league's top-10 point differentials (plus-3.8) behind an MVP-level performance from Kevin Durant. But "fine" registers as a disappointment for a squad that carried championship expectations into the season.

The Nets aren't running roughshod over the competition like they did in the rare moments their three-superstar core shared the court last season. They rank 29th in attempt frequency at the rim. Kyrie Irving's absence has everything to do with that. Unvaccinated against COVID-19 and still therefore away from the team, Irving has yet to contribute this year. It's an open question whether he ever will.

If/when he plays again, Irving will have to integrate himself into a team that has changed from last season—and one he wasn't even all that familiar with to begin with. He and James Harden only played 27 games together; ditto for the Irving-Durant pairing. And that's just the on-court stuff. What about the potential for frustration from teammates who, understandably, might feel as if Irving abandoned them?

No one will want to see Brooklyn in a playoff series—even if Irving is out of the picture and even if Harden continues to post his worst box plus/minus and PER in a decade. Durant is great enough to put the fear of God in opponents on his own. But the Nets will still be a diminished version of themselves and undeserving of title-favorite status as long as Irving is absent.

Youth, supremely creative talent and confidence are all assets. But for the Charlotte Hornets, who have those three characteristics in spades, the downside may be inconsistency.

Charlotte's schedule has been brutal, and we should credit it for emerging from the season's first month with more wins than losses. LaMelo Ball's clairvoyant passing and Miles Bridges' two-way stardom have produced no shortage of highlights in the process, but we can't just ignore that ugly five-game losing streak from early November.

We also can't minimize the more recent surge that included victories over the conference-leading Golden State Warriors and Washington Wizards.

The Hornets play a brash, uptempo style that can overwhelm any opponent. But they're not always attentive on defense and tend to swing for the fences when a solid single would get the job done. They'll win and lose games they probably shouldn't.

The next step in this promising team's development is smoothing out the highs and lows. For now, let's enjoy the roller coaster.

I was all the way out on the Chicago Bulls' recent roster-building plans, which included last year's exchange of two first-rounders and Wendell Carter Jr. for Nikola Vucevic, as well as this past offseason's costly addition of DeMar DeRozan.

It felt like Chicago was sacrificing a ton of draft equity and payroll flexibility for a roster that wouldn't defend, wouldn't fit together and probably couldn't finish higher than sixth in the East.

All that was dead wrong, of course, as the Bulls are among the conference's best teams. They've already bested the Toronto Raptors, Utah Jazz, Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets, Dallas Mavericks and both L.A. squads, posting top-10 rankings in both offensive and defensive efficiency along the way.

DeRozan has been an efficient scorer; Alex Caruso and Lonzo Ball are wreaking havoc defensively; Zach LaVine is unstoppable. The whole thing works.

So! Apologies are in order. The Bulls look great. Would an "I'm sorry" tweet suffice, or do we need to up the ante and charter a skywriter?

These are supposed to be mildly concerning questions, almost worries in some cases. So we have to resist the temptation to make the Cleveland Cavaliers' entry "Where and how tall should Evan Mobley's statue be built outside Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse?"

Fortunately, that question relates to the issue at hand: the fate of Collin Sexton.

Cleveland is thriving with the young core of Mobley (currently sidelined with an elbow sprain), Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen. The Cavs are defined by an excellent defense built around their two big men, and Garland is showing signs of becoming an All-Star point guard, flirting with a 50-40-90 shooting split until a recent mini-slump.

The Cavs' offensive rating resides in the bottom 10, which makes Sexton and his career average of 20.0 points per game seem critical. But the fourth-year guard is out indefinitely with a torn left meniscus, and Cleveland was actually scoring more efficiently with him on the bench this season.

Sexton and the Cavs couldn't reach an extension agreement over the summer, and he'll hit restricted free agency in search of his next contract having lost a ton of leverage. Injured and perhaps no longer a fixture in the Cavs' future vision of themselves, Sexton is in a tough spot.

Will Cleveland keep him at a reduced rate or turn the franchise over to the trio of youngsters enjoying so much success without hi

Luka Doncic is starting out slowly again, raising all of the same worries about his conditioning and workload. This is basically an annual tradition now.

While it's troubling that Doncic keeps starting seasons in what can fairly be called less than prime shape, the familiar lack of a secondary shot creator is the bigger issue. Because while Doncic's sluggish starts are disappointing, it's actually his late-season habit of wearing down that damages the Mavs.

Other than Jalen Brunson, Dallas doesn't have players who can consistently share the playmaking load with Doncic. As long as that's the case—and it has been a glaring frailty in the team's roster construction throughout Doncic's career—we should expect Doncic to buckle by season's end.

Rest assured, Doncic will find his form and join the MVP discussion. The only thing more reliable than his bumpy takeoff is the height of his cruising altitude. Chances are he'll also shake whatever fatigue he's feeling in April to produce more dominant playoff numbers, just as he has in each of his two postseason appearances.

But if the Mavericks don't find more players who can pierce the defense or run a pick-and-roll, leaving all that work to Doncic (and Brunson), they'll suffer their third consecutive first-round ouster.

Michael Porter Jr. didn't look like the potential scoring champ he should have been this season, and now we know why. A back injury was the culprit, and Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone said MPJ is out "for the foreseeable future," per Harrison Wind of DNVR Sports.

Every injury, especially to potential bust-out stars, is a concern. But for MPJ, who played just three collegiate games and missed his entire rookie season after undergoing two operations on his back, a problem cropping up in that particular area is a bright red flag.

Denver is already without Jamal Murray, who's recovering from a torn left ACL. Add Porter to the list of young Nuggets stars with uncertain return dates. Normally, there'd be more handwringing over Murray's knee. But we've seen players come back from that injury, severe as it is. In this case, given Porter's history, a torn ACL is somehow less troubling.

The Nuggets still have the reigning MVP in Nikola Jokic, so the wheels will never fall all the way off. But a healthy and dominant Porter was key to getting this franchise into the true contender tier.

The first answer should be "a 20-year-old," and that factual response to the question above ought to quiet concerns about the future. With a few superstar exceptions, players that young aren't even out of the ball-of-clay phase of their development. There's ample time for the Detroit Pistons to mold Killian Hayes into something.

At the moment, though, it's difficult to understand what type of player the No. 7 pick in the 2020 draft should be.

The notion that he was a point guard faded quickly last season, as Hayes spent more time off the ball down the stretch. Cade Cunningham's obvious ability as a primary creator (doubly valuable because he has wing size) might make Hayes' shot-creation role disappear entirely.

It's encouraging that Hayes is hitting threes at a clip above the league average of 34.3 percent, but he's taking under three triples per game. Volume is as important as efficiency, at least from the standpoint of its effect on a defense. And if he's not going to be a threatening shooter, it's clear that Hayes isn't succeeding nearer the bucket.

He's shooting an incomprehensible 27.5 percent on two-pointers.

Again, Hayes is 20, and a hip injury cost him most of his rookie year. But it shouldn't be so hard to envision the future of a high lottery pick.

Up front, we need to talk about how Klay Thompson and James Wiseman's impending returns to the Warriors rotation get lumped together, as if they're of equal import to the Dubs' suddenly realistic pursuit of a fourth title this decade.

Thompson is among the greatest shooters ever who also happened to be a multiposition lockdown weapon on D. Wiseman never knew where he was supposed to be on either end, struggled to catch the ball and couldn't figure out how to high-point a rebound in his injury-shortened rookie year.

You could make the case that Wiseman matters more to the Warriors over a 10-year timeline, but to equate his potential impact with Thompson's—even in light of the likelihood that Thompson might not be more than 75 percent of his old self after two years of rehabbing devastating ACL and Achilles injuries—just isn't right.

That said, both players have the potential to lift the Warriors another notch. That's a big deal for a team that owns the league's best record and top net rating. When you're already that good, "another notch" means greatness. Golden State is familiar with that level, but it's been a minute since the team hung out there.

Thompson could supercharge the offense with his shooting, commanding attention (and taking it away from Stephen Curry) in ways no one else on the roster can. Kevon Looney's minutes are just sitting there waiting for Wiseman to seize them, but it's still unlikely the 20-year-old center will see the court when the stakes are highest.

But who knows? Perhaps Wiseman will make a leap and Thompson will look more like his old self than anyone expects. If that's the case, we'll need to figure out what what to call the notch above greatness.

NBA coaching jobs are hard to get, so even the worst ones are coveted. But Stephen Silas, a lifer as an assistant and now in his second season heading the Houston Rockets, might have the toughest of the 30 gigs available.

Last year, he signed on to coach a team led by James Harden, only to lose the 2017-18 MVP via trade. The tank was on after that, and the rough patches haven't abated this season. Houston owns the NBA's worst net rating by a considerable margin and is on pace to turn the ball over more often than any team in the last decade.

This is the kind of thing that's liable to happen when Jalen Green (19) and Kevin Porter Jr. (21) have the two highest usage rates on the team, and All-Star guard John Wall is sitting out, collecting checks to not play. Still, the rebuilding Rockets have to be hard on Silas, who weathered a 20-game losing streak last season and might see multiple skids of at least 10 contests before the 2021-22 year is out.

Here's hoping Silas keeps his job long enough to enjoy the upswing in two or three years.

Personnel should dictate style, and the Indiana Pacers aren't exactly teeming with burners. They don't have the players to be an extreme uptempo outfit.

But surely they can move a little more quickly than they have so far, ranking last in transition frequency and in the bottom 10 in pace. In fact, we know they can. Indy ranked seventh and fourth in those categories last season.

New head coach Rick Carlisle is known for this, as ESPN's Tim MacMahon noted in 2015, when short-time Dallas Mavericks point guard Rajon Rondo became the latest in a long line of players to bristle at "a slow, deliberate style, with Carlisle meticulously controlling the game from the sidelines, calling plays on nearly every possession."

The Pacers reside in the middle of the pack in offensive efficiency, but they endure long stretches of plodding, ponderous play. The history of this roster suggests it can be much better than that if it picks up the pace and Carlisle loosens the reins a little.

Paul George looks as good as he ever has, and that's saying something for the guy who finished third in MVP voting in 2018-19. With Kawhi Leonard out (ACL), George is handling the ball more, shooting more and keeping the Los Angeles Clippers in the race for a top-four seed out West.

That last part didn't seem likely prior to the season, but maybe that's because we all forgot George has had no shortage of success as the best player on a big-time winner. Remember the Indiana Pacers teams he led to a pair of Eastern Conference Finals in his early 20s?

Leonard's return date is uncertain. But adding even a diminished version of him to a Clippers team that toppled the Utah Jazz in last year's postseason is an exciting possibility.

This turned into more of a George appreciation post than a question, but the veteran star's comfort as an alpha factors into whether we overlooked the Clips as contenders.

The Los Angeles Lakers traded half of their rotation for Russell Westbrook, whom they seemed to think was still a superstar. If you were among those who didn't like the move because of what Russ' lack of off-ball value, declining on-ball efficiency and general disinterest in defense meant for L.A.'s postseason outlook, you probably thought you'd have to wait to be proved correct.

Turns out Westbrook is validating skepticism a few months early.

He's not great as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, ranking in the 53rd percentile in scoring efficiency on such plays. He isolates on a larger percentage of his possessions than anyone on the team and is in the 29th percentile in points per play. And he almost never cuts, perhaps because he averages a paltry 1.15 points per possession, good for a spot in the 31st percentile.

Russ is also perhaps the least respected three-point shooter among guards in the entire league. Opponents often leave him totally alone. Possessions that end with a Russ jumper are wins for the defense.

So far, the Lakers just haven't found a good way to use Westbrook. They're getting hammered whenever he's been on the floor, and any thought of him holding things down so LeBron James and Anthony Davis could take breathers feels like a joke now. The Lakers are losing those minutes, which come almost exclusively against backups.   

The Westbrook experiment will probably get better but only because it'd be hard for it to be going any worse.

The Memphis Grizzlies don't technically have the worst defense in the NBA. But they're the only team in the bottom three that has any hope of making the playoffs, so their struggles on that end matter more.

First the good news: Opponents have shot the lights out from long range, peppering the Grizz with an incredible 48.9 percent hit rate on corner treys and hitting 40.5 percent overall. Those numbers are more subject to luck than opponent success at the rim, so it's likely the Grizzlies' overall defensive numbers will improve as other teams' deep shots go in at league-average rates.

That said, the Grizz need to be better at limiting corner-three attempts while also keeping opponents from taking a third of their shots at the rim.

Dillon Brooks is back from a hand injury, and he'll at least up the defensive intensity. Plus, Jaren Jackson Jr.'s minutes have coincided with much better defensive performance. That might matter more than anything else in the long run. But for now, Ja Morant has to do more at the defensive point of attack, and Memphis must buckle down collectively. Otherwise, the play-in round might be this team's best-case scenario.

The Miami Heat are allowing their opponents to take 44.8 percent of their attempts from long range, the highest frequency in the league. They did this last year en route to a top-10 defensive rating, and the Milwaukee Bucks have made a habit of permitting a lot of threes without suffering for it. So maybe this is much ado about nothing.

Then again, only about 35 percent of Miami's field-goal attempts come from long range, a bottom-10 rate. That means the Heat have to work a little harder to make up the discrepancy. They're basically choosing to live on the wrong side of the NBA's most widely embraced mathematical principle: Three is more than two.

It helps that Duncan Robinson is finally snapping out of his early-season skid from deep. He canned 11 of his 23 attempts in wins over the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder on Nov. 13 and 15. You can take fewer threes as a team and get away with it if you've got a guy like him.

The Heat do things their way, and it's been hard to argue with the results. They defend, they get to the foul line a ton and they make sure the threes they do take come from the short corners. But maybe Miami could reach another level by narrowing the gap between the threes it allows and the threes it attempts.

Brook Lopez, Jrue Holiday, Khris Middleton and Giannis Antetokounmpo have appeared in one game and shared the floor for a grand total of six minutes this season.

Please refer back to that sentence when determining the appropriate level of concern for anything that's gone wrong in the Milwaukee Bucks' underwhelming title defense. And don't forget to note that presumptive fifth starter Donte DiVincenzo also hasn't played at all.

The only question for the Bucks, who proved themselves to be the league's best team a year ago, is when the player groupings who solidified that status will get on the floor for a consistent stretch. It's tempting to argue Milwaukee won't need all hands on deck until the playoffs, but it'd be nice to see the regular rotation get some reps in advance—if only to ease worries that Lopez's back and DiVincenzo's ankle (to name two) may hamper them in the games that matter.

When you win a title, you get more benefit of the doubt than most. But the Bucks need to get their best players on the floor eventually.

It stood to reason that the Minnesota Timberwolves would struggle to defend this year. D'Angelo Russell, Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards would likely lead the team in minutes (which they have), and no member of that trio has ever been known for his work on D.

Oddly, the Wolves have survived on that end while failing miserably on the other. They've played to a bottom-10 ranking on offense.

Towns isn't getting enough touches. He's third on the team in field-goal attempts per game despite leading the Wolves by a huge margin in true shooting percentage. What's more, the Wolves are coughing the rock up way too often, tying for second-to-last in turnover rate.

With one of the league's highest three-point attempt rates, Minnesota is doing at least one thing right. There's no way the Wolves will continue to make under 30 percent of their corner treys, and regression to the mean in that area should at least get their offensive rating up toward the middle of the pack.

Still, Minnesota needs to better utilize Towns—ideally without taking developmental reps away from Edwards. More pick-and-pop action feels like a no-brainer, especially with Edwards showing improved craft to go with his stupefying athletic bursts. If the Wolves stabilize offensively, it should balance out the defensive slippage that's likely on the way.

The New Orleans Pelicans have more than one key question attached to Zion Williamson, but a triage approach to the situation means we have to ask if he's healthy before getting to consider whether he, you know, wants to play for the organization.

At the moment, Zion is still rehabbing from offseason foot surgery and hasn't seen game action, though he's finally been cleared for contact. That's a positive step, albeit one that disappoints in light of preseason promises he'd be ready for the opener. The query that should be keeping the Pels up at night, though: Can we count on him being fully healthy for a full season? Like, ever?

Williamson has already undergone knee surgery as a pro, and he's had issues with both knees dating back to college. Add the foot issue to the mix, sprinkle in the tired but valid worries about his conditioning and large frame (6'6", 284 pounds), and it's not so hard to see a scenario in which New Orleans is regularly playing without Zion.

Actually, that is already a reality. He's missed 75 games in a little over two years as an NBA player.

New Orleans has loads of problems to solve—no surprise for the team with the second-fewest wins in the league. But the big one is and will always be Zion's health.

The New York Knicks' first unit has been far from its best one, and head coach Tom Thibodeau's patience is running short with Kemba Walker, Evan Fournier, RJ Barrett, Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson.

Tired of watching his starters dig holes to start games and run up the third-worst point differential of any regularly used five-man group in the league, Thibs made some offensive tweaks in hopes of fixing the issue, per the New York Post's Marc Berman.

Don't expect it to be the last attempt at correction.

"You want to make sure there's a large enough sample size to tell you something," Thibodeau told reporters. "The first thing you ask [is] are we playing hard enough and executing properly? If what we’re doing is not good enough, that’s when you change."

It's a good thing New York's bench has the highest net rating of any five-man unit in the league. That won't last forever, though, and the Knicks will need to get more production from the starters by the time regression hits those reserves.

The Oklahoma City Thunder were a pretty good team last season...until they decided not to be.

After beating the Timberwolves on March 22, OKC was 19-24. The tanking Thunder didn't put Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on the court again after that, and Al Horford logged just 25 more minutes all season. A 3-26 stretch ensued, helping OKC to slip in the standings and improve its lottery position. Josh Giddey, an intriguing guard taken sixth overall in the 2021 draft, was the payoff.

As measured by record and net rating, Oklahoma City is nowhere near the worst team in the league this year. Will the Thunder throw in the towel early again, hoping to win their race to the bottom before too many victories pile up? Would the roster and fanbase revolt if, for a second straight season, the Thunder commit such naked self-sabotage?

It'd be more fun to ask about the long-term viability of Giddey and SGA or whether Luguentz Dort deserves $20 million per year on his next deal. But the Thunder's goals this year are the same as they were in 2020-21, and the most compelling question is what they're willing to do to achieve them.

Prediction: The Orlando Magic will not continue to be nearly 40 points per 100 possessions better with Cole Anthony on the floor. The highest such on/off differential in the league last year (among players who logged at least 1,000 minutes) belonged to Draymond Green at plus-15.1.

That makes the answer to the question above easy. No, Anthony cannot keep this up.

But what we're really asking—and what warrants more discussion—is whether Anthony has arrived as a top-line star in his second season. Through his first 15 games, he's averaging 19.9 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.7 assists on 55.9 percent true shooting. That last figure would have been much better if not for a 1-of-9 outing from deep in a win over the Nets on Nov. 17, but Anthony is still one of just seven players with those numbers in 2021-22.

More minutes and improved three-point shooting appear to be the main drivers of Anthony's progress, though he's also done well to cut mid-rangers from his game. He'll certainly continue to see big minutes, so the real variable here is his long-range shooting. If that's for real, the Magic have a surefire keeper.

Unless you're an unwavering optimist, the preseason question about whether the Philadelphia 76ers and Ben Simmons could reach a meeting of the minds is dead. Their relationship is irreconcilable.

That means attention must turn to what the Sixers will get back in the Simmons trade that, eventually, has to happen. The return is going to be consequential, and it could reshape a 76ers team that, if you look closely enough, deserves mention as a contender.

Philly's offense has surprised, ranking in the league's top five despite plenty of key players missing games because of health and safety protocols. Tyrese Maxey has taken a step forward, Seth Curry basically never misses (51.5 FG%, 44.3 3PT%) and Tobias Harris is as steady as not-quite-All-Stars come.

The defense has disappointed, but it's been just fine with Joel Embiid (the latest Sixer sidelined by COVID-19) on the floor. Philly's defensive rating is 103.0 when he plays, a top-five-ish figure.

If the Sixers add a true star or elite shooting via trade, they could offset whatever scoring regression might be on the horizon. If they supplement the defense, the stopping power could get scary—whether Embiid is on the floor or not.

Philly is going to look different once a deal gets done. We just don't know exactly what that transformation will entail.

The Phoenix Suns have been one of the league's most dominant teams since shaking off a 1-3 start, and they're winning with the same formula that got them to the Finals a year ago—which is to say they're taking a ton of the shots most other offenses have been conditioned to avoid.

When you have Chris Paul and Devin Booker commanding most possessions, you're going to get an inordinate number of mid-range shots. Those two are uncommonly efficient in that ill-favored area, which is why the Suns ranked fourth in effective field-goal percentage last season, despite a shot profile that, based on location, should have produced the fourth-worst effective field-goal percentage. Only five teams took a larger share of shots from the mid-range area.

The Suns are again scoring more efficiently than location-based analysis says they should, but their preferences have grown more extreme. Phoenix is 26th in attempt rate from deep and 28th in the percentage of shots taken at the rim. Last year, those ranks were 15th and 30th, respectively. The Suns were already on the fringes from a shot-selection perspective, but now they're swapping out even more triples for two-point jumpers.

Against playoff defenses designed to run shooters off the line and protect the rim, Phoenix is uniquely equipped to succeed. The shots opponents spend the year conceding are the same ones the Suns seek out. Still, you have to wonder if there's a limit to how far off-trend a team's offensive profile can be.

Phoenix is pushing right up to the edge.

Damian Lillard has been battling lower abdominal tendinopathy for years, and it struck acutely during his stint with Team USA in Tokyo over the summer. While it certainly wasn't good news for the Portland Trail Blazers when the same issue sidelined Lillard for a game against the Denver Nuggets on Nov. 14, at least it offered an explanation.

The six-time All-Star was off to the worst start of his career, as measured by virtually any metric available. True shooting percentage, win shares per 48 minutes, box plus/minus—all career lows so far. Lillard's shockingly poor three-point shooting (28.3 percent) has grabbed attention, but his struggles go deeper than a wayward jumper. Now, maybe we know what was up.

If the lower abdominal pain is the cause for Lillard's career-worst start, it's a mixed blessing at best. On the one hand, at least the Blazers can point to health as the cause of Lillard's poor play. That's better than plain old age-related decline.

On the other, this is an issue Lillard has managed for a long time, which suggests the 31-year-old hasn't found a way to get past it entirely. Injury management isn't a cure, especially when the injury afflicts a guy with Lillard's mileage. He's played more minutes than anyone in the league since his debut in 2012.

This thing might never go away.

This isn't how franchise cornerstones are supposed to play.

De'Aaron Fox, a decent preseason bet to make an All-Star leap this year, has been among the biggest disappointments in the league. After averaging 25.2 points per game on a career-best 56.5 true shooting percentage last season, Fox has fallen off precipitously.

And yes, this is about more than Lu Dort ripping Fox for a game-winning steal and bucket.

His points per shot attempt and assist rate are both lower than they've been since his rookie year. Fox is also shooting just 24.3 percent from deep and getting to the foul line 7.6 times per 100 possessions. That latter figure is down from the elite 9.8 free throws per 100 he managed a year ago. He remains a below-average defender his despite exceptional quickness and newly added muscle.

The Athletic's Sam Amick and Shams Charania noted that Fox's comfort alongside Tyrese Haliburton is becoming a concern. But Haliburton has outplayed his backcourt partner this season, and the Kings have been better with both on the court than with Fox alone.

Fox is playing his first season with a maximum salary, and this Sacramento roster is at least as talented as any with which he's played. A shake-up may be coming if Fox can't find his form.

Against even the worst NBA defenses, there's no such thing as easy points. But relatively speaking, free throws are as uncontested as scoring opportunities get.

Through the first month, the San Antonio Spurs are dead last in free-throw attempt rate.

Dejounte Murray has been San Antonio's best player this year, but creating contact near the rim isn't among his strengths. He's only getting 2.3 foul-shot attempts in 34.5 minutes per game. Keldon Johnson, who has the frame and strength (6'5", 220 lbs) to tear the backboard down, leads the Spurs with just 3.5 free-throw tries per contest.

San Antonio has long loved two-point jumpers, and attacking the rim hasn't been a core tenet of the offense at any point in the last two decades. Until that changes, the Spurs aren't going to get much in the way of easy points.

The Toronto Raptors are long on wing and forward-sized players, and they combine that roster makeup with a frenzied aggression that results in some of the most chaotic stretches in the league. In a good way.

It's just that flying around so wildly usually comes with a cost—a cost Toronto hasn't paid this season.

Case in point: The Raps are the NBA's best offensive rebounding team. While the league is trending away from crashing the offensive glass, Toronto goes hard in its hunt for second shots. Typically, the price for sending extra bodies to the boards is a shoddy transition defense. It's not complicated; if you're around the opponent's basket, you've got a lot farther to go to protect your own.

But the Raptors hold opponents to the lowest transition frequency in the league.

Toronto also forces turnovers at an elite rate, which might just be more evidence that this roster is built with the right kinds of athletes and competitors for wreaking havoc. Length, speed, predatory aggression toward ball-handlers—it adds up.

The question for Toronto is whether it can sustain this style without eventually suffering the expected downsides.

The Utah Jazz have been a regular-season winning machine over the last couple of years, a feat achieved by leaning on an advantage-creation offense that feeds the ball to players on the move and trusting in an established defensive system that orbits around Rudy Gobert.

To analogize, they've got a killer fastball, and they can throw it on every pitch during the year without fear of reprisal. The postseason requires a change-up, though, and it's still unclear whether Utah has one.

Can the Jazz downsize when opponents do? Are they finding new ways to keep Gobert on the floor against smaller, quicker units? Is the perimeter defense improved enough to obstruct the parade to the rim we saw the five-out Clippers conduct last postseason?

Rudy Gay has barely played, though he might be the guy Utah envisions as its stylistic switcher-upper. Eric Paschall is another possibility, but he tends to only see minutes at center once games are decided. Hassan Whiteside does what Gobert does, just worse.

There's time. Utah could swing a trade for Thaddeus Young or some other veteran option who would give it a different look when the need arises. For now, these Jazz don't appear to have diversified their arsenal.

The Washington Wizards' hot start is one of the year's biggest surprises. That they're doing it with Bradley Beal playing well below his typically brilliant levels is a 10,000-volt shocker.

Washington has risen to the top tier in the East on the strength of an aggressive defense and a stellar bench. Raul Neto, Montrezl Harrell and Deni Avdija have regularly crushed opponents when sharing the floor. 

Meanwhile, the Wizards are getting outscored in Beal's minutes. The three-time All-Star's shooting woes—third-lowest true shooting percentage of his career and a ghastly three-point hit rate under 30.0 percent—are part of the reason Washington's starters have underperformed relative to the bench.

Better play from Beal guarantees nothing; the Wizards almost always lose when he posts big point totals. But that was usually because Beal didn't have enough help around him. With the reserves building leads now, who knows what Washington's ceiling might be once Beal gets rolling?

Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Accurate through Nov. 19. Salary info via Spotrac.