NBA Preview 23-24: Series Intro & Tier Explanation
A new NBA season is right around the corner - get ready for the action with The Basketball Notebook Preview Series
WELCOME to The Basketball Notebook official preview series for the 2023-24 NBA season. Over the next 7 days, I’ll be breaking down each team and making some predictions about how they’ll perform this upcoming year. There will be some key differences between this article series and other season previews you may have seen in the past. As such, the purpose of this intro is to break down some of the finer details in depth in order to mitigate confusion and provide you, the reader, with a guide to refer back to as you go.
Instead of grouping teams by division or conference, I have grouped them into six tiers, listed below:
Tier 1: Definite Championship Contenders (Article Release Date: 10/16)
Tier 2: High Ceiling Teams w/ Extreme Variance (10/17)
Tier 3: Competitive Playoff Teams Lacking Championship Upside (10/18)
Tier 4: Teams Expecting to Make the Playoffs (10/19)
Tier 5: Teams Expecting to Make the Play-In (10/20)
Tier 6: Rebuilding (10/21)
It’s important to note that the tiers are intended to group teams by what I think their playoff ceiling is, NOT how I believe they will finish the regular season. As you will see, my regular season win/loss records for the 30 teams will not line up perfectly with my “power rankings” of the teams from 1-30. Certain teams, in my opinion, are built to rack up regular season wins but are not necessarily particularly threatening to the top teams in the playoffs. Others, I might question their depth or injury history (hence limiting their regular season win potential) but believe if everything clicks, they have the top level talent to make a deep playoff run. Throughout the season, I’ll be periodically releasing power rankings that group teams in the tiers above. Within a given tier, I believe that the differences between the teams are negligible and as such, would not quibble with any differing rankings of those specific teams. A movement in ranking up or down within a tier does not represent a significant difference in how I view that team - a drop or rise from one tier to another most definitely does, and requires sizable evidence of significantly better or worse play than expected OR significant roster change.
In addition to providing a projected win/loss record, I have also projected each team’s offensive, defensive and net rating. If you are unfamiliar with these metrics, below is a definition:
Offensive Rating: Number of points scored per 100 possessions
For reference, the Kings led the NBA in ORTG in 2022-23 at 118.6, the Hornets were last at 108.4
Defensive Rating: Number of points allowed per 100 possessions
In 2022-23, Cavaliers first at 109.9, Spurs last at 119.6
Net Rating: Differential between a team’s offensive and defensive rating
In 2022-23, the Celtics led the NBA at +6.7, Spurs were last at -9.9
These efficiency ratings provide a much more accurate view of a team’s success rate than raw points per game because it factors in pace. For example, a team could be inefficient offensively but score a relatively large number of points per game purely because they get up and down the court and their games have a ton of possessions. Having a good net rating is highly correlated with winning games - the team with the best regular season net rating has finished with the most regular season wins in four out of the last five seasons.
If you are curious about which other metrics I find most helpful in evaluation and projection of both teams and players, stay tuned - The Basketball Notebook will have an “Analytics Glossary” link on the website homepage with definitions and explanations of application.
As alluded to above, I will be rolling out this preview series in multiple installments throughout this week. Schedule for release is as follows:
Monday October 16: Tier 1 Preview
Tuesday October 17: Tier 2 Preview
Wednesday October 18: Tier 3 Preview
Thursday October 19: Tier 4 Preview
Friday October 20: Tier 5 Preview
Saturday October 21: Tier 6 Preview
Sunday October 22: Playoff & Award Predictions
There is a lot of writing about each team in the league, so fear not - these previews will still apply through the early stages of the season. The preview series will remain linked on The Basketball Notebook homepage for you to refer back to (or read for the first time) as the season goes along.
I will have three additional checkpoint stages:
Christmas Week (Roughly ⅓ of the way through the season)
Post Trade Deadline (When rosters will be mostly set for the postseason push & playoffs)
End of Regular Season (Taking final stock of each team before the postseason begins)
At each checkpoint I will re-evaluate each team and both re-tier and re-rank teams within tiers as necessary.
OK, so now that we’re all on the same page and the administrative work is out of the way, be on the lookout for the fun stuff. Tier 1 preview drops tomorrow.