76ers aren’t a top 6 team in the nba next year and I’ll tell you who it is (not delusional picks like actual picks). (No bucks sorry bucks fans). So I have a few problems with this 76ers team that I want to list out first before I say the 6 teams I think are gonna be better next year. First is there injury history. Embiid is one of the biggest injury question marks in nba history and LeBron is an old fart and brittle rn. Labaron in college had some minor injury problems and Maxey and Simon’s are built like twigs. And I wouldn’t have thought much of the injury problems but then realized if Embiid goes down there starting center is either LeBron or Adam bona which is a huge problem for them. Second is there weird clunky spacing. Now most of there players on there team are decent shooters (besides bona) but none are a true knock down threat and are all just pretty good or good. There’s no elite spacer. Normally teams that win win cause they out shoot other teams. How is a Phili team without 1 consistent 40% shooter gonna out 3 ball the top teams. They also don’t have a true lock down threat and are a bunch of team defense players which is fine besides when my next problem comes into play. They have barely if ever played together. Besides Maxey, edgecombe, and Embiid there core is barely together from last year and everybody is new so they all have to take some time to build chemistry and learn to co exist together. And all 5 starters work in the same area. Maxey drives to the hoop a lot, vj is a slasher, jb is a mid post slasher, lebron is a slasher, and Embiid works best in the low post. The chemistry is gonna take time and that time is gonna result in a slow start and more losses at the start of the year. So finally the teams I think are gonna be better.
Heat- Giannis+returning core of heat culture players and lock down d is gonna be fine. Also bam is an underrated spacer.
Knicks-defending champs, don’t think I need to go into detail.
Pistons-young core 1 seed last year. Again don’t think need much detail besides they were a 1 seed last year and there big 3 are returning and gonna probably be better then last year.
Raptors*- the asterisk is if Kawhi is there. If kawhi is there then there adding a top 10-15 player in the world last year to a team that was pushing Cleveland to 7 and it’s not like they gave up this huge hall for Kawhi. Brandon Ingram is just Kawhi without the d and less offense and Gradey dick barely played when it counted. And there wing depth defensively is gonna obliterate the 76ers in head to head.
Cavs- this team gets a second chance with mostly the same core as last year and they went to the cf last year in hardens first half of a year on the team. Once they figure out how to use him more and better then they will be even better.
Boston-yea I mean the Celtics. Besides brown how did they get worse. I’m exited to see Tatum as a true number 1. In the modern nba stuffing a bunch of stars together has rarely worked but 1-2 stars and depth normally works quite often and Tatum gets elite spacing, interior d, and Derrick white along with underrated depth. Paul George could still go and average 20 on this team as a secondary creator cause he’s not washed yet. Mitch Robinson and cenac are gonna make Bostons interior d one of if not the best in the nba. And Conley isn’t a win later move by any means.