I am simultaneoulsy optimistic and pessimistic about this team.
Let's start with the pessimism. There is still a noticeable lack of talent across the board. Yes, Wemby should be top-5. But beyond that, Fox is a borderline top-30 player and then shit gets bad. Steph is promising but still has a ways to go to be viewed as a legit #3 on a serious team. We don't know what Dylan or Carter are yet, and it would be foolish to say they will be immediate, positive players in the mold of a top 5-7 player on a serious team. The friendship crew is detritus, at best. The rest are either spare parts (KO), bench players (JC, Kornet), or due for the old-folks home (HB). There is a stark lack of talent here, no matter how you look at it.
Optimism. Aside from OKC, DEN, and MIN, there are some serious questions for the #3-#8 spots. Houston lost their only credentialied ballhandler, which will not help their main weakness historically -- halfcourt offense. I doubt Ime puts the ball in Amen or Reed's hands and says run the offense. But they may not have a choice. The Clippers are hella old, injury prone, and under a massive investigation that might result in their star player being banned from the league. The Lakers are relying on a 41 year old Lebron. The Warriors are relying on Jimmy, Steph, and Ray-mond, who are all north of 35. The Mavericks are relying on injury-prone AD to be their best player and who the fuck knows what Kyrie looks like when he's back. It's hard to gauge how Memphis will look due to Ja's inconsistency and their trading away their third best player.
There is so much room for variance given all these factors that, even with our lack of talent, is the fourth seed out of the question if age catches up to people and KL2 gets banned? Similarly, there's so little historical evidence for optimism I could see this team getting bounced from the play-in as the 10 seed.
