The sometimes-earned and often-delusional optimism that is NBA media day has come and gone.
Now it’s time to get to work.
Training camp opens up around the Association Tuesday, and with the turnover that the league experienced over the summer, there’s plenty of intrigue to be had.
Here are the six most interesting storylines:
How Leonard landing in Toronto impacts the Raptors rotation
Kawhi Leonard is a member of the Toronto Raptors, and with that comes plenty of positives, but also a problem.
Obviously, given Leonard’s talents on both sides of the floor, head coach Darko Rajakovic will want to play Leonard as much as possible, but there will be times when he must sit.
This is where the problem lies.
The Raptors benefitted from plenty of internal growth last season from players such as Ja’Kobe Walter, R.J. Barrett and Collin Murray-Boyles. After a stellar Summer League, there’s also an expectation to see some of the same from rookie Allen Graves.
All of these players want and can play the same spots on the floor. That is to say, they’re all versatile wings who can play a little bigger or smaller depending on matchups. Leonard and Scottie Barnes are very similar, but unlike this grouping — and you can throw the veteran Kyle Anderson into that mix as well — Leonard and Barnes won’t be fighting for minutes.
More than seeing what Leonard might do and even what different lineups Rajakovic might experiment with Leonard in the game during training camp, it’ll be interesting to see how the Raptors coaching staff allocate minutes and the lineups they use without Leonard.
Every player listed deserves to see the floor — it’s just a matter of how much of it they’ll see, and if the lack of minutes could end up souring guys who believe they should be playing more.
76ers' super team experiment
Somehow, the Philadelphia 76ers added LeBron James and Jaylen Brown to a team that already had Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and V.J. Edgecombe.
Injury concerns aside, this is a team with deserved high expectations. Now it’s just a matter of how it’ll all fit together.
More than any other team, the Sixers are a squad that must be seen to get any sense of who they are and how they might work.
Duren-Pistons standoff
Jalen Duren didn’t attend the Detroit Pistons media-day festivities after he and his agent, Chafie Fields, rejected Detroit’s reported five-year, $200-million contract extension.
Duren has until Thursday to sign an extension, or he will be entered into a one-year, $9.6-million qualifying offer.
The impasse between the two sides appears to stem from the fact that Duren had a spectacular regular season that saw him make his first all-star team and earn him an All-NBA Third Team selection for averages of 19.5 points and 10.5 rebounds per game in 70 games played. However, during the post-season, Duren regressed, putting up averages of 10.2 points and 8.5 rebounds in 14 playoff games, which saw him benched at times for his poor play.
By making an All-NBA team last season, Duren is eligible for a max extension worth $287 million over five years from the Pistons, a number Detroit seems unwilling to match.
On the final season of his rookie-scale contract, Duren has the option to bet on himself, so to speak, by taking the qualifying offer and playing out the season with the Pistons before entering unrestricted free agency next summer. However, doing so would see him with lesser earning power on the open market, where he would only be able to command a four-year, $189 million max contract with a different team.
Duren will supposedly be welcomed back to the Pistons no matter the result of his standoff, but while the team might be OK with how he’s handling things, a firestorm of trade rumours that were already simmering will likely start if he doesn’t get his way and, instead, takes the qualifying offer.
Life with and without LaMelo
In one of the more shocking moves made during the summer, LaMelo Ball was traded from the Charlotte Hornets to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a four-team blockbuster.
Ball is coming off his best and most complete season as a pro, averaging 20.1 points and 7.1 assists per game in 72 games played as the talented-but-mercurial point guard played more in control than ever, helping the Hornets to their first above-.500 season since 2021-22.
It would seem the step up in maturity that Ball took last season wasn’t enough for Charlotte, however, and now Ball will be plying his Jekyll-and-Hyde trade next to Anthony Edwards.
There’s never been any denying Ball’s talent, but whether he can take the game seriously enough to be a player who can consistently impact winning rather than just the highlight reel has always been the issue.
There’s a chance Minnesota made the kind of move that helps get Edwards off the ball more and helps save him better for the playoffs, or it could just mean more work for him.
On the other hand, by removing Ball, that could mean more time for Kon Knueppel and Brandon Miller to operate with the Hornets. It’s also entirely possible that Ball’s exceptional vision is what helped facilitate all those open threes last season.
The fortunes of two franchises this season look to hinge on Ball, even if he doesn’t play for one anymore.
Injured stars returning to action
Even though it’ll just be pre-season, it’ll be most welcome to see Tyrese Haliburton, Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard and Fred VanVleet back on the court.
All four players missed all of last season — unless you count Lillard winning the three-point contest during all-star weekend as playing — and all four will be counted on to help their respective teams.
There will be pressure on Haliburton, in particular, to pick up the slack and be the engine for an Indiana Pacers team that went from one win away from winning it all in 2025 to bottoming out without him last season.
Rookies to watch
Every new season comes with a crop of exciting rookies, especially during the pre-season when they’ll likely get more opportunity before the games become real.
There should be heightened excitement for this season’s batch, however, because of how highly touted the class is, including AJ Dybantsa of the Washington Wizards, Darryn Peterson of the Utah Jazz, Cameron Boozer of the Memphis Grizzlies, Caleb Wilson of the Chicago Bulls, and more.
Draft evaluators told everyone that this was going to be a special draft class. Now we get to put that statement to the test.
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