Time flies when you’re having fun and it has been an absolutely entertaining first month of NBA basketball. We’re almost at the point where the stats officially start to matter. It takes about 20 games for things like offensive rating, defensive rating and individual numbers to somewhat stabilize and we are nearing that mark.
Still, there’s a lot to glean from the last week of hoops. Let’s get into it (read last week’s observations here).
No. 1: The Oklahoma City Thunder Are A Tier Above Everyone
When will the Thunder lose their next game? Seriously, I want you to do me a favor. Look at their schedule and see when you can point out their next guaranteed loss. You can’t. You probably won’t be able to at any point this season because, as things stand, there isn’t a single comparable team to the Thunder.
Yes, the Denver Nuggets are formidable. The New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers are going to be the top dogs in the East. But the Thunder are 14-1 with the fourth-best offense and the best defense in the Association. They have an outrageous plus-15.5 net rating, which is five points better than the 73-win Golden State Warriors’ net rating in 2015-16.
To make matters even more ridiculous, their second-best player, Jalen Williams, hasn’t played a single game yet and they’ve had a slow start shooting the ball, ranking 21st in 3-point percentage at 34.8 percent.
They’ve run out three different starting lineups in the process. Some include the breakout second-year guard Ajay Mitchell while others include Cason Wallace or their double-big look of Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. It hasn’t mattered. Nothing has. The Thunder win games with all those iterations. They have become a regular-season machine akin to those 2016 Warriors or the 1996 Chicago Bulls and they’re going to win like it.
No. 2: Is The Denver Nuggets’ Defense Real?
The Nuggets have the league’s third-best defensive rating, limiting teams to 110.6 points per 100 possessions. That would be, by far, the best mark of the Nikola Jokic era. Now, is it real?
The Nuggets are doing an excellent job of getting back in transition. They’re the third-best transition defense in the league, partly because they’re limiting how often teams run out on them. Teams run against Denver on just 13.7 percent of possessions, third-lowest in the Association and three percent better than the Nuggets’ mark last season. In particular, their depth helps them in transition as the rotation has fresher legs throughout the game.
They’ve also implemented more zone in their half-court sets. Denver is fifth in zone frequency this season. That allows its anchors — typically Jokic or Jonas Valanciunas — to camp inside the paint. As a result, those big men don’t have to move around too much and play out of position defensively. It’s a formula the Nuggets first discovered during their second-round series against the Thunder last season and now, head coach David Adelman has fully incorporated it into their scheme.
That said, the 3-point shot can beat zone defenses and the Nuggets are getting pretty lucky in this regard. Their opponents are taking the seventh-most threes (all five other zone teams are also in the top 10) but are shooting just 31.9 percent on them, the NBA’s second-lowest mark behind the Toronto Raptors. So, yes, there is a bit of luck involved in their good defensive start.
No. 3: Kon Knueppel Is The Rookie Of The Year
The Rookie of the Year is a first-year player out of Duke but it’s not Cooper Flagg. It’s Kon Knueppel. The Charlotte Hornets guard is averaging 17.6 points per game (tops among all rookies) and doing so efficiently. He’s shooting 46 percent from the field, 40 percent from deep and 88 percent from the free-throw line (61.8 percent true shooting). He’s also in the top five in rebounds and top 10 in assists among all rookies.
He’s scored 20 or more points in half of his games and just dropped 32 against the Bucks during his homecoming game to Milwaukee on Friday. Knueppel has flashed star upside very early and perfectly meshed in the Hornets’ offense system predicated guard screening actions. The Hornets are generating 1.636 points per possession when Knueppel is the screener in pick-and-rolls, where his ability to create in the middle of the floor has been exceptional for his age.
The Hornets seem to have nailed the 2025 NBA Draft with Knueppel, big man Ryan Kalkbrenner and wing Sion James contributing immediately for a feisty, young group figuring out how to win in the NBA.
But it starts with Knueppel, who, at this point, is the frontrunner for the league’s most prestigious rookie honor.
No. 4: The Toronto Raptors’ Bench is Mobbing
After a sluggish 1-4 start, the Toronto Raptors are rolling. They’ve won eight of their last nine games and boast a top-10 offense, defense and net rating. It’s early but the signs of a versatile, dynamic team are there, with Brandon Ingram and Scottie Barnes at the forefront.
That said, “the others” are outperforming their expectations as well. While the Raptors’ starting lineup has a minus-0.8 net rating in 134 minutes this season — still working through the kinks of their offense — it’s been their bench buoying them. The Jamal Shead-Gradey Dick-Sandro Mamukelashvili trio has been extremely impactful. Their blend of off-the-bounce playmaking, shooting and decision-making pairs well with the all-around stars in Ingram and Barnes.
Just look at how much better the Raptors are when all three are on the court versus when all three are off the court. That group is developing an identity and it’s helping Toronto win, even when its starting lineup isn’t performing up to expectations.
No. 5: The Phoenix Suns Are Defending
As usual, the fifth thing on here is just something to keep under your radar, similar to how we flagged Dyson Daniels and the Atlanta Hawks’ newfound offensive system last week. This week, it’s about the Suns defending their tails off. They have the league’s 14th-best defense overall and eighth-best half-court defense, where they’re limiting teams to just 94.1 points per 100 half-court possessions.
Their most-used lineup, consisting of Devin Booker, Dillon Brooks, Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neale and Mark Williams, boasts a dominant 96.1 defensive rating in over 120 possessions played together. There is some luck involved; opponents are shooting 34.8 percent against them from three (eighth-lowest in the Association). But they’ve also done a great job of walling off the rim and rank among the top 10 in opponent rim frequency.
They are headed for a tough stretch of games against the Thunder, Nuggets and Houston Rockets to close out this month, so we’ll see just how real first-year head coach Jordan Ott’s defense is when push comes to shove.
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