Knee-Jerk Reactions From Week 1 Of The NBA Season

The NBA is back, and while we’re only a week or so into the 2017-18 NBA season, we’ve got enough big storylines going that you’d think we’ve been playing hoops for months. Unfortunately, severe injuries to both Gordon Hayward and Jeremy Lin tipped the season off on the wrong note, but it hasn’t been all bad news — Patrick Beverley roasted Lonzo Ball, and that was fun, right?

As a quick aside, it’s going to take some getting used to, but having the NBA break up their schedule by the week has been a fun little wrinkle nobody is really talking about. The NBA season runs for 26 weeks, through April 11, and while it doesn’t really matter, it creates a new cutoff and starting point for everything. In the spirit of trying out new things, here are some knee-jerk reactions to Week 1 of the NBA season. I like it.

What is going on with Markelle Fultz?

A video of Markelle Fultz shooting awkward free throws in the preseason went viral in early October, and watching him do the same thing in the regular season has created another wave of criticism from more casual NBA fans who may have skipped out on preseason hoops.

As far as why Fultz is shooting his free throws like that, the answer isn’t exactly clear. He had a shoulder issue, and that has been given as a reason why he changed his shot in the first place, but it’s unclear exactly how much it’s still bothering him. If your shoulder issues are causing that free throw form, you have to question if playing him at all is the smart move.

It’s just weird. Is that a knee-jerk reaction? Maybe not. Fultz hasn’t been bad thus far, but something here doesn’t seem right.

Injuries have taken away from the excitement of a new NBA season

Anticipation for the start of the 2017-18 NBA season was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Player movement this summer was at an all-time high, with teams repeatedly swinging for the fences in an effort to compete with the Golden State Warriors’ super team. Jimmy Butler joined the Timberwolves. Paul George and Carmelo Anthony landed in Oklahoma City. The Houston Rockets got their hands on Chris Paul. The Boston Celtics revamped everything, acquiring Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward in the process.

And just like that, six minutes into Hayward’s career as a Boston Celtics, in the first game of the NBA season, he goes down with one of the most brutal injuries you’ll ever see. Since Hayward went down, Jeremey Lin blew out his knee, Milos Teodosic is out for an indefinite period of time, and we haven’t even seen Kawhi Leonard yet.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is the NBA’s MVP (of Week 1)

Giannis Antetokounmpo’s numbers through the first week of the NBA season are absurd. Everyone talked about a potential MVP caliber season out of The Greek Freak, and he’s living up to that hype so far. In three games, Antetokounmpo has cruised to 38.3 points, 9.7 rebounds, 5.0 assists, and 2.7 steals on .672 shooting from the field in 38.3 minutes per game. Read that stat line again and try to determine which number is most impressive. I’d inclined to go with shooting nearly 70 percent from the field when your attempting 22.3 shots per game. That is unreal. He is breaking basketball.

Let’s take the Antetokounmpo hype one step further. Is he the single most valuable asset in the NBA right now? Would the Bucks trade Antetokounmpo for any single player in the NBA, one-for-one, right now? I don’t think they would, and that’s amazing. Are LeBron James and Kevin Durant, for example, better than Antetokounmpo? Maybe, but we’re talking about the value of an asset here. What Antetokounmpo is doing on the court right now is unheard of, and the Bucks have him locked up through 2021.

The Golden State Warriors are vulnerable

Like every other person on planet earth, I picked the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA Championship this season. I wouldn’t try to weasel my way out of that prediction just because the Warriors are 1-2, but the Warriors are 1-2. In the Warriors defense, they haven’t had an easy schedule. They lost to the Houston Rockets in their home opener before defeating the Pelican by eight points in New Orleans, and falling to the Grizzlies in Memphis on the second night of a back-to-back.

All caveats aside, the Warriors feel vulnerable in a way this incarnation of the Warriors hasn’t felt vulnerable before. In some ways, the Warriors did this to themselves. They’ve been so dominant, so feared, so good that any semblance of a decline gets blown way out of proportion, which is exactly what I’m doing here, but I have a built-in excuse. This is knee-jerk reactions. This is exactly the kind of content we’re looking for here.

The Phoenix Suns are a nightmare

The Phoenix Suns started off the 2017-18 NBA season 0-3. They’ve lost those three games by a combined 92 points, and that the best part of their season so far.

This weekend alone, Eric Bledsoe appeared to have asked for a trade on Twitter. Rookie wing Josh Jackson pointed a finger gun at the stands, pulled the fake trigger, and told someone in the crowd “f*** you.”

And, of course, they fired head coach Earl Watson. It’s been seven days since the NBA season opened! Four games! What an amazing display of incompetence.

The Process might need more processing

The Philadelphia 76ers were a trendy Eastern Conference playoff prediction heading into the 2017-18 season, and for good reason. They are an incredibly fun bunch to root for, first of all, but beyond that, their young core is legitimately impressive. The bottom half of the Eastern Conference is such a mess that it seemed conceivable that the 76ers could sneak in the playoffs despite their inexperience.

The 76ers sit at 0-4 through Week 1 of the NBA season, and there is plenty of cause for concern. Markelle Fultz is either injured, has a serious issue with his shooting form, or both, as we already addressed. Joel Embiid is still on a minutes restriction and is very unhappy about it. They got their first win of the season on Monday night, but they’re still 1-3 on the year. It’s going to be a process.