In Their Bag

Oklahoma City Thunder

You know. I really didn’t want to talk about the Thunder, but I couldn’t avoid it anymore. They’ve started this season a ridiculous 22 – 1. A lot of people expected this team to have a hangover after last year’s championship season. But nope, they’ve somehow come out even more dominant this year. They’re not just beating teams, but they’re absolutely HUMILIATING them. They’re beating their opponents by a mind-whopping 16 points a game. If they continue this pace, they will shatter the previous record … which was set by them last year. On defense, they’re only allowing 107 points a game, which is easily the best in the NBA. They have 3 players on their team who have made an all-defense team: Jalen Williams, Alex Caruso, and Lu Dort. Not to mention all the other defensive beasts in Chet Holmgren, Cason Wallace, SGA, and Isaiah Hartenstein. This team is only going to get better with each passing game as they play together more.

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Bag Lookin Shallow

Toronto Raptors

What happened? After starting the season the Raptors 1 – 4, the Raptors went 13 – 1 in their next 14 games, looking like they could compete at the top of the Eastern Conference. Then RJ Barrett got injured, and since going 13 – 1, they’ve gone 1 – 5. Their defense is still elite, and Scottie Barnes is a potential dark horse for DPOY. They’re still one of the league’s premier teams on defense and transition offense but the problem is what happens if they can’t score in transition. The offense often gets stagnant, when that happens, the only thing they’re able to do is set a double screen for Ingram to get him the ball, then let him iso. This isn’t a recipe for success, not because Ingram isn’t a great scorer, but because it’s very easy for a defense to pick up on that. That allows the whole defense to focus on Ingram because they know nobody else is a threat on the court. Of course, getting RJ Barrett back will help that, but you can’t rely on everybody being healthy for the whole season. Darko Rajaković has to find a way to get Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley more involved in these situations to unload Ingram of all the offensive duties. If Darko can find a way to do that, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them compete at the top of the wide-open East.

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No Bag

New Orleans Pelicans

I would hate to be a Pelicans fan. I would rather be a fan of any other team but the Pelicans. I can’t recall them ever being a true contender, and ever since they drafted Zion, he’s just been a headache. But somehow, after all this, they found a way to make their situation even worse. It’s almost impressive how a team can make their team bad for so long. Not only do the Pelicans have the worst record in the league, but they can’t even afford to tank. Because they stupidly traded their pick this year to the Hawks for Derik Queen. However, to Queen’s credit, he has been good, but not good enough to justify potentially missing out on Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybansta, or Cameron Boozer. There is no way for the Pelicans to dig themselves out of the mess they made.