20 NBA storylines to watch as season tips off: Bronny James plays with LeBron, Jayson Tatum revenge tour, more

The 2024-25 NBA regular season is here. Action is set to kick of Tuesday night with two games, beginning with the Knicks at Celtics on Boston’s ring night, followed by the Timberwolves visiting the Lakers and the chance of LeBron James sharing the court with his son, Bronny James.

Does it not feel like last season just ended? The Olympics definitely gave the offseason a shorter feel, but alas, we’re back at it again and this season pretty much promises to provide tight races all over the place. Never had the league been this deep with both players and teams. So buckle up. 

Below are 20 storylines to watch as the regular season unfolds. 

1. The Knicks ready for title contention

The trade for Mikal Bridges. The subsequent trade for Karl-Anthony Towns. The re-signing of OG Anunoby. Jalen Brunson as the MVP candidate on the team-friendly contract. No Eastern Conference team is better equipped to match up with Boston’s two-way perimeter power. Towns fits perfectly as a floor-spacing five. Josh Hart’s role feels in flux, but this team is ready to legitimately contend. Finally. 

2. The Wemby takeover

Victor Wembanyama averaged 23.5 points, 12 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 4.5 blocks and 1.5 steals per game after the All-Star break as a Spurs rookie last season. As our Sam Quinn noted in our Top 100 player rankings (where Wemby ranked 12th), “no player has ever done that for a full season. No one has even come close. If you trim every one of those numbers by 10%, it’s still only been done once… by peak Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.”

And the crazy thing is, this felt like easy work for the 7-foot-3 Wemby. Chris Paul brings competent point guard play and Wembanyama is rapidly developing his feel for when and where and how to attack with his greatest efficiency. It is bonkers how great this guy can be, and we’re not going to have to wait long to see it. He’s already the best defender in the league and could legitimately be in the MVP conversation this season if the Spurs were in a position to actually contend for a playoff spot. Unfortunately, they’re not. But Wemby is worth the price of admission on his own. 

3. Luka vs. SGA for MVP?

These feel like the two clear favorites for MVP. Anthony Edwards could definitely sneak in there and win. A lot of guys could, in fact. But Luka Doncic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are poised to go head to head for the game’s top individual trophy. It feels like Doncic’s time, but SGA and the Thunder have been ahead of schedule for a while now. Speaking of …

4. OKC primed to level up

If they stay healthy, the Thunder feel like a damn-near lock to win 60 games. SGA is hypnotically watchable. Jalen Williams is a beast. Chet Holmgren is probably the league’s second-best rim protector next to Wemby and a three-level scoring star waiting to explode, though that evolution could take a bit longer than it would in another situation given the sheer number of mouths to feed in OKC. 

The ball zips on this team. Everyone cuts. Everyone defends. Isaiah Hartenstein (eventually) and Alex Caruso join the fold. A million draft picks still in the holster, including the Clippers‘ first rounder next summer. OKC could legitimately win the title this season AND end up with Cooper Flagg in 2025. The upside on Thunder stock doesn’t even make sense. This is like Apple in the early 2000s. 

5. Now or never in Philly

I actually think Tyrese Maxey is the most exciting part of this 76ers team. He’s a borderline superstar, while Joel Embiid is going to manage his body all season and Paul George is one of the most routine star players in the league, which is to say he’s more of a pencil-him-in type guy than someone you HAVE to watch. But George is the big addition — even if his health is already an issue. The one that is supposed to launch Philly into the realm of honest contenders. He might be a third-option on paper, but he won’t have the luxury of playing like that. He’s on a max deal and will be expected to justify that kind of cash in a now-or-never situation in Philadelphia. 

6. Can LeBron and AD stay healthy (again)?

This is all that matter for the Lakers. We can sit here and talk about new coach JJ Redick and how they’re going to shoot more 3s and how big of a steal Dalton Knecht might’ve been. But if LeBron James and Anthony Davis don’t play in at least 65 games each, this team is sunk. And they might even have to play in more than that. 

Last season these two played in 76 (AD) and 71 (LeBron) games each, and the Lakers STILL had to get into the playoffs through the play-in round. Then they were quickly dispatched by the Nuggets. It’s just not likely that LeBron at 40 years old and Davis, who outside of last season is typically a walking injury, hold up like that again. 

The Celtics aren’t a terribly intriguing regular-season team. We know they’re awesome and yet not all that exciting. They could win 60 games pretty quietly. The buzziest thing about this team is Jayson Tatum, who took a real ego hit in the Olympics when he was basically reduced to team manager and now it’s going to be fun to see if he heads out on a season-long revenge tour. He’s an MVP-level superstar. Don’t get that twisted. He might just go crazy. 

8. Zion and the intriguing Pelicans

Zion Williamson played in 70 games last season and was superb. He was about to take out the Lakers in the Play-In Tournament when he had 40 points before having to leave down the stretch of the game with a hamstring issue. The position-less Pelicans are super weird without a real center and a Brandon Ingram-sized elephant in the room. But Williamson has the ability to make this a playoff team. This feels like a big season for Williamson to back up last season and get some sustained momentum going on his career. 

9. Can the Grizzlies pick up where they left off?

Ja Morant was supposed to be back last season, but then he only ended up playing nine games. Now he’s back, back again, and the Grizzlies have a chance to be pretty damn scary in the West. Remember, this is a team that won 56 games and was the West’s No. 2 seed two years ago. Things got derailed as Morant spiraled through a series of off-court incidents and a suspension before his injury, but he’s still just 25 years old and could reasonably jump right back into MVP-level form. Jaren Jackson Jr. Desmond Bane. This team is very good, and don’t look now, but rookie Zach Edey might be kind of a problem. 

10. The high-variance Warriors

Most Warriors fans were disappointed when what seemed like potential marquee trade opportunities for Paul George or Lauri Markannen didn’t happen, but Golden State had a quietly solid summer and this is potentially a Western Conference sleeper with great depth, more lineup versatility, another world-class 3-point shooter in Buddy Hield, and a still-at-the-height-of-his-powers Stephen Curry. Could be fun. Could also be a low 40-win team. High variance in the Bay. 

Hey, I’m into it. I think if we’re all being honest, we’re all into it. Is Bronny good enough to play in the NBA right now? Is this thing going be a spectacular bust? He’ll probably a lot of the year in the G League, but who knows? Maybe he’ll end up on the back end of the Lakers’ rotation. Either way, if and when he gets up with the big club, let’s be real, we will all have our eyes on the Lakers as soon as we see the tweet that he’s on the floor. 

12. Jamal Murray holds key to Nuggets

Without Jamal Murray looking like Jamal Murray, the Nuggets are probably screwed. I know Nikola Jokic is otherworldly awesome, but this team has gone backward. I don’t want to make too much out of losing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, but he tied a lot of things together on both ends. If Murray doesn’t play big, too much becomes required of Michael Porter Jr. and even Christian Braun. 

Murray had a really good year last season, but he shot terribly in the playoffs (game-winners against the Lakers notwithstanding) and all but disappeared in the Olympics. Denver needs a superstar Murray this year, whereas in the past he could more save his superstar performances for postseason takeovers. 

Pat Riley has said this is basically a make-or-break year for this roster, and if it starts leaning more toward the break side, you’re going to hear Jimmy Butler’s name in trade-deadline talks. He can turn down a $52 million player option next season and become a free agent this summer. If Miami does commit to a rebuild, or at least a revamping, trading Jimmy would obviously be preferable to potentially losing him for nothing. 

14. Ant and the Wolves

Minnesota is coming off a conference finals run and Anthony Edwards is poised to assert himself as quite possibly the face of the league. He might already be there. The Wolves are different. Karl-Anthony Towns is out; Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle are in. 

There’s a world in which this is a better team than last year and it’s also a distinct possibility that they’re worse. We’ll see if Naz Reid is really ready to fill Towns’ shoes and if Randle can help as a non-spacing individual scorer. However it plays out, the Timberwolves have all our attention, if only because Edwards is officially must-see TV. 

15. Sophomore Scoot

To say Scoot Henderson was a disappointment as a rookie would be an understatement. He was, for the most part, a disaster. The Blazers guard and No. 3 pick in 2023 had some encouraging numbers down the stretch, to be fair, but it’s also hard to know how to interpret a lot of these games late in the season. Can he shoot consistently? Can he not be a turnover machine? 

This a big year for a guy who was quickly anointed by many as a future superstar, only to then look like a potential bust. You can say it’s too early to even be thinking the word bust, but we all remember James Wiseman and how bad he looked early in his career. He was young. Hardly any college experience under his belt. But it was clear very early that he just wasn’t going to pan out relative to his supposed potential, and time has done nothing to disprove that conclusion. We’ll see about Scoot. 

Last year was a dream season for Kyrie Irving and the Mavericks. Irving, specifically, was a superstar player and a dream teammate completely absent of the drama that has dominated his previous few seasons. 

This is simple: Can it continue? I think and hope that it will. Irving seemed to be a genuinely good place all of last season and he is again proving how great he can be in his sweet-spot as a wingman to an all-time talent. 

17. Can Dame become Dame again?

Let’s give Damian Lillard a mulligan on Year 1 in Milwaukee. He wasn’t bad by most players’ standards, but he was not Dame. The Bucks need him to be the flame-throwing assassin he was in Portland. Doc Rivers will put the ball in his hands more, and Giannis is going to be Giannis. But what about Khris Middleton? We’re back on the “when will he be ready?” bus. And when he is ready, how impactful can he still be? When will Brook Lopez finally decline? 

The Bucks are old. They were not particularly good even after Rivers took the job from Adrian Griffin. This feels desperate. Like Lillard has to go supernova to give Giannis any kind of fighting chance to compete. I don’t see it. But it’ll be fun watching Dame try to change back into his old superhero outfit. 

18. Were the Pacers a fluke?

if you want, you can pretty easily paint the Pacers with the colors of the 2021 Hawks, who also made a surprise run to the Eastern Conference finals on the strength of an offensive-magician point guard and a friendly bracket. Those Hawks made the mistake of thinking that run was legit, and not a one-off, and brought pretty much the same team back. They have been terrible ever since. 

Will Indiana be terrible? No. For starters, I trust Tyrese Haliburton to get the most out of a team far more than Trae Young at this point. They’re getting Bennedict Mathurin back. And they have Pascal Siakam for the whole season. Still, this was probably not a true conference finals team last season. They got the Bucks without Giannis and Lillard for two games, and then they beat the Knicks, who were basically pulling the vendors out of the stands to play by the end of that series. Indiana could, with a few bad breaks, go from the conference finals to the play-in, just like the Hawks did, and it wouldn’t be terribly surprising. 

19. Coach Bud’s Suns

I sort of think we’re sleeping on the Suns. Tyus Jones ties some stuff together, and Mike Budenholzer is going to unlock the offense that somehow, against all odds, was the worst fourth-quarter team in the entire league. With Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, that should be impossible, but they pulled it off. There’s just no way that happens again. 

Booker and Durant are coming off huge Olympic performances, and that has always boded well for players coming back the following season. I think they shoot more 3s under Bud and Bradley Beal, who is sort of like a bonus on this team, makes the offense great enough to not have to be a defensive monster, which I think Frank Vogel was more suited to encourage. Good coach fit, two superstar players, this is a good team that too many people are willing to write off because it didn’t go all that well last season. 

This is the best story in basketball right now. This guy was all but finished. Almost three years he was away from the game. For all intents and purposes, he got a new knee after three surgeries, the last being a cartilage transplant from a cadaver. No player has ever successfully returned from this procedure, but Lonzo looked incredible in his first preseason game, like he honestly hadn’t missed a beat, drilling his first two 3-pointers and playing with all his same pace and pressure on both ends. The Bulls stink, but rooting for Lonzo is going to be the easiest thing to do all season.