Finding our sound
Finally, it happened. Kevin Durant goes to Phoenix; the Brooklyn saga is over; the West now has seven All-Star starters to the East’s three; and an amorphous, winnowing NBA season is suddenly injected with definition and purpose.
The 2022–23 NBA season has offered little more than brooding mediocrity in many of its flagship franchises. As high-profile players collectively miss an unprecedented number of games, teams like Sacramento, Cleveland, and New Orleans have stepped into the limelight to join bona fides like Milwaukee, Boston, Memphis, and Denver atop the league’s standings. Meanwhile both LAs, Phoenix, Dallas, Golden State, Chicago, Atlanta and Miami have underwhelmed and failed to inspire. In hindsight, things have definitely been too quiet. It was inevitable this would happen.
The Irving-Durant migration ignites a Western conference that had slumbered through nearly two-thirds of the year and invites aggressive jockeying in the East for what is now a seemingly vacated home playoff spot. While Dallas and Phoenix obviously incur an extreme rejiggering of their fates, the mere presence of those players should motivate the Clippers and Warriors to gear up for a grueling stretch run and eventual playoff battle royale. The Lakers, meanwhile, also executed a trade; one that reallocates their resources in a manner befitting a rounded 2023 basketball team and not some 2017 NBA2k fantasy.
The path in the East clears fully with Durant following Irving out of Brooklyn. A three-team conference, between Boston, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia should prove much less menacing than the West, and invites a team like Miami, Chicago or maybe even Atlanta to make a move that can elevate it to challenge Cleveland and set up a deeper playoff run. The Knicks’ addition of Josh Hart is the right type of move to push a New York up from a sixth-to-eighth spot to a five or potentially a four. This positioning doesn’t impact their title hopes considerably, but moves them closer to the realm of where they hope to be this season.
Furthermore, the trade deadline is in 15 hours, as of this writing. The story of the deadline is being written. In addition to waking up some sleeping giants in the West in particular, the trade explains in retrospect the lulled feeling I’d get whenever I’d look at the West standings: “There’s only chaos, no order here.” I finally feel like this year has a plotline. I see the story arcing toward something bigger. Phoenix in particular has felt like there has been a certain reticence in their conservative approach to player health and lack of urgency on the floor. Now the urgency is heightened, not just in Phoenix but everywhere. As much as has happened, we have a long way to go, both in the season and in the trade deadline. As it goes on from here, though, we now – finally – have the moment that spurred all into motion. We are moving in rhythm, with one glorious chord having found our sound.