Tuesday NBA Open Thread

We are about 1/4 of the way through the season, so sanity is restoring itself. No, it does not seem that the Jazz are really any good. The Warriors probably are more or less OK. The Suns, Nuggets, and Grizzlies are rising to the top of the West. At least the Lakers still suck.

But one thing that has been crystal clear since the start of the season is that Boston is not missing having Ime Udoka as coach one bit. That is one damn good basketball team. I think everyone wondered how much their success last year was Udoka and how much of it was roster construction. To take nothing away from Udoka’s coaching (unlike his personal behavior), that is one deep, deep team. Payton Pritchard is a pretty useful player and he would be getting 20-25 minutes a night for most teams and he doesn’t even see the floor except in a blowout or if someone is taking the night off. Tatum and Brown are just excellent players. And they don’t even have Robert Williams yet! This could be the best team this year and it’s really either them or the Bucks in the East. I’d say those are also the two best teams in the league. I don’t know how much of this is Rhode Island legend Joe Mazzulla as coach, but they have weathered a real crazy storm pretty damn well.