The dirty secret of NBA offense over the last few years is that it has largely improved unabated. The 2023-24 Boston Celtics were the most efficient offense in NBA history in scoring 122.2 points per 100 possessions. They broke a record set by... the 2022-23 Sacramento Kings at 118.6, who themselves broke a record set by... the 2020-21 Brooklyn Nets at 117.3, who, sure enough, broke a record set by... the 2019-20 Dallas Mavericks at 115.9. NBA offense has advanced so rapidly that the No. 1 offense 10 years ago, the 2014-15 Los Angeles Clippers, would have ranked 25th last season had they maintained their mark of 111.6 points per 100 possessions. Until last February, scoring had steadily become easier and easier in the NBA with no end in sight.
Before the All-Star break, the average team's offensive rating according to NBA.com data was a shade above 115.2. Afterward? It dipped nearly two full points to just a hair below 113.3. That dip might seem minor on paper, but it represents a significant historical anomaly. Basketball-Reference tracks the league's annual offensive ratings, and scoring hasn't declined that much from one season to the next since the 2011-12 season, which is an outlier in its own right as that was a lockout year. The last time it happened in a non-lockout season was the 1982-83 campaign. Scoring tends to jump by wide margins, but decline? That's a rarity, and we could all see with our own eyes why it happened.
The rules changed. Defenses were allowed to play more physically. Whistles grew rarer. Free-throw rates declined, and players who relied on free throws suddenly had to adjust their playing styles on the fly. That, for now, appears to be our new normal, and as we enter the season, it has to factor into our evaluation of all 30 offenses the league has to offer.
So let's rank those offenses going into the season. These are not rankings of optimized offensive quality. Some of these teams will be better or worse in the postseason. Some of them will be better equipped than others to handle injuries. What we are attempting to measure here is which offenses will actually rank at the top of the league in terms of points scored per 100 possessions when the regular season concludes in April, factoring in everything we know about the rosters as of today and the rule changes that came last season.
1. Dallas Mavericks
2023-24 offensive rating: 117 (points per 100 possessions)
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 8
Last year's Mavericks took off when their deadline trades fixed a flawed defense. This year's roster, with Klay Thompson presumably replacing Derrick Jones Jr. in the starting lineup, is going to tilt more toward offense. Fortunately, they're going to be incredible at it. The formula is straightforward. Dallas has the best pick-and-roll creator in the NBA in Luka Doncic. The four remaining starters fit flawlessly. Kyrie Irving is among the NBA's best secondary creators. Klay Thompson is among its best movement shooters. Dereck Lively is among its best rim-runners and a sorely underrated short-roll playmaker. P.J. Washington does a bit of everything. The bench is where that defensive dip should be made up, but Jaden Hardy appeared more than ready to provide meaningful bench scoring in the postseason. Dallas may eventually decide it prefers starting a defensive-oriented lineup and sub Naji Marshall in for Thompson, but for now, this offense is going to be incredible. Doncic was the rare superstar whose numbers actually got better after last season's rule changes, and his offensive supporting cast has taken another step forward.
2. Boston Celtics
2023-24 offensive rating: 122.2
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 1
The Celtics would rank No. 1 if Kristaps Porzingis was healthy to open the season. Obviously, he isn't, and that gives Dallas just enough breathing room to sneak into the top spot. Boston doesn't have quite the diversity of skill sets that Dallas does offensively, but the Celtics more than make up for it with their shooting. They led the NBA in 3-point attempts by a mile last season and came just a hair shy of leading the league in percentage as well. Last year's offense was actually a bit more efficient with Porzingis out, but even if the Celtics thrive when their five other core players play, the reality of an NBA season is that more injuries will eventually come, and not having Porzingis around to soften those blows stings.
3. New York Knicks
2023-24 offensive rating: 117.3
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 7
New York's offense won't look like it has in years past. The Knicks have never posted a top-10 offense by half-court points per play under Tom Thibodeau, but they've had back-to-back top-seven offenses because they've been so good on the offensive glass. Those teams often played two big men. This team will lean only on one, Karl-Anthony Towns, at least until Mitchell Robinson returns in the middle of the season. What the Knicks are losing in heft, they'll more than make up with shooting. Towns is a substantially more valuable offensive player at center than power forward because replacement-level shooting at center is so much lower than it is at power forward. The Knicks are getting an elite shooter at a position full of non-shooters, and he does far more than that. Towns is a pick-and-roll beast that has been hidden on Minnesota rosters ill-equipped to take advantage. Jalen Brunson and a bevy of wings that can space the floor will show the league what he's capable of in that regard. If you're really concerned about offensive rebounds, though, don't worry. Josh Hart is still around, and he's going to get plenty of them. Good luck boxing him out with this much shooting on the floor.
4. Indiana Pacers
2023-24 offensive rating: 120.5
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 2
For the first three months or so of last season, the Pacers more or less torched the offensive record books. Forget about efficiency records, at one point they were on track to break the total points per game record despite playing in a relatively slow era. Tyrese Haliburton was on track to break the tracking era's record for most combined points and points created by assists. The names aren't quite as glitzy here as they are for some of the other teams in this range, but make no mistake, the Pacers play better team offense than practically anyone in the NBA, and they were doing all of this before they even got Pascal Siakam. So why No. 4 and not No. 1? A few reasons. First, Tyrese Haliburton got hurt in January and the Pacers were suddenly mortal. Haliburton's injury history is meaningful enough to factor in here. Second, we haven't seen what a healthy Haliburton looks like against these more physical defenses. Are the current rules equipped for the sort of track meets he favors? We'll see. The Pacers will be great on offense. It's just a matter of how great.
5. Oklahoma City Thunder
2023-24 offensive rating: 118.3
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 3
Oklahoma City's offense last season was deceptively simple. They got here in a variety of creative ways, but the basic principle was "let Shai Gilgeous-Alexander create advantages close to the basket so we can tee off on wide-open 3s." That will largely be the plan again this season, but with a few caveats. The Thunder swapped a meaningful amount of secondary creation in Josh Giddey out for players who do different and potentially more valuable things, but don't fill that secondary creation vacuum. Alex Caruso's connective passing matters. Isaiah Hartenstein's unstoppable floaters are a lethal late-clock weapon. The only question here is going to be how easily they can generate shots when Gilgeous-Alexander isn't on the floor. Fortunately, the Thunder are so young and so rich in assets that they have about a dozen viable possible answers for that question.
6. Philadelphia 76ers
2023-24 offensive rating: 113
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 14
The 76ers have scored at a top-three rate during Joel Embiid's minutes four years in a row now. There's no question that Philadelphia is going to score when he's available. The two prevailing questions here are: a) how often will Embiid play? and b) what happens when he doesn't? The former is unknowable, but last season was something of an outlier. He missed 43 games, but in the four prior seasons, averaged around 18. If you assume Philadelphia is more careful about managing him this season, which seems a safe bet given how last season went and the fact that Embiid has already won his MVP award, then it feels reasonable to guess that, barring a freak accident, he's likelier to miss around 20 games than 40 this season. As for what happens when Embiid is out? Well, that's simpler: now the 76ers have three stars instead of two. Having both Paul George and Tyrese Maxey around will go a long way in this regard. While George (who is already dealing with injury issues of his own) and James Harden are obviously very different players, but it's worth noting that Philadelphia lineups featuring Harden and Maxey but no Embiid were quite good on offense. George and Maxey overlap far less. All in all, this ranking likely comes down to how often Embiid plays. Even if he misses a typical amount of time, though, the 76ers should be quite good.
7. Milwaukee Bucks
2023-24 offensive rating: 117.6
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 6
The Bucks are among the harder teams to peg at the top of the list. Despite all of the drama, the awkward pick-and-roll fit, and everything else that went wrong here a year ago, the Bucks were unstoppable with both Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo on the floor together last season. There's a school of thought here suggesting that a year of seasoning, a full training camp under Doc Rivers and a nice summer on the minimum-salary free agency market should launch the Bucks into the top five. There are a few problems with that. For starters, the Bucks also completely abandoned the offensive glass last season under both Rivers and Adrian Griffin, and as that's long been Rivers' tendency, it probably isn't changing. That helps defensively. It hurts the offense. More importantly, remove either Lillard or Antetokounmpo from the game and the 2024 Bucks suddenly became pretty stoppable. That makes sense. This is not a deep roster, and it's an aging one. Khris Middleton has missed nearly half of the past two seasons. Brook Lopez is 36. Even Lillard may not be able to hide from Father Time much longer. Small guards tend to slip around their mid-30s, and Lillard is now 34. If the core players were a year or two younger, the Bucks would probably be a top-five offense. As it stands, they come up a bit short.
8. Phoenix Suns
2023-24 offensive rating: 116.8
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 10
This is a split-the-difference ranking for Phoenix. The injury risk is high enough here that the Suns could conceivably post a below-average offensive rating. The talent is great enough here that the Suns could also finish in the top three. I lean toward the latter because of how many little things Phoenix cleaned up this offseason. They have point guards now! Tyus Jones and Monte Morris are by no means stars, but they don't need to be given the stars elsewhere on the roster. Mike Budenholzer teams typically have stellar shot diets. Last year's Suns took way too many mid-range shots and never got to the rim or shot 3s. Budenholzer isn't going to pull Kevin Durant and Devin Booker out of the mid-range entirely, but he can nudge the offense in the more efficient directions it needed to go. The Suns are slightly better-equipped to handle injuries this season than they were a season ago.
9. Denver Nuggets
2023-24 offensive rating: 117.8
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 5
This is a dangerous ranking. Denver has never ranked lower than seventh on offense since Michael Malone made Nikola Jokic a permanent starter. This isn't the worst offensive roster Denver has had during the Jokic era, but it's not far off, and the league as a whole has gotten better. Jamal Murray followed up a shaky postseason with a worse Olympic run. His preseason hasn't inspired much confidence, and it's not clear how healthy he'll be this season. Denver already took the fewest 3s in basketball last season, and one of their best shooters, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, now plays for the Magic. The players expected to absorb bigger roles in his absence range from good shooters on low volume (Christian Braun) to bad shooters who may have room to grow (Peyton Watson) to the worst high-volume shooter in NBA history (Russell Westbrook). Julian Strawther is basically the only hope to provide meaningful space here, and given how reluctant Malone generally is to play young players, it's not clear how much of him we'll see. Jokic is so good that Denver is practically an automatic top-10 offense, but given everything else at play here, it seems more likely that they finish in the bottom half of the top-10 than the upper half.
10. New Orleans Pelicans
2023-24 offensive rating: 116.5
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 11
The next two teams are practically opposites of one another. Like the Suns, this is a split-the-difference ranking. If the Pelicans are healthy they have pathways into the top five and if they aren't, things can get ugly pretty quickly. The upside stands out compared to the downside because the Pelicans don't have a center. The upside of Zion Williamson attacking the basket with four shooters around him is too tantalizing to leave out of the top 10. It doesn't matter that Brandon Ingram and Dejounte Murray are duplicative or that health even beyond Williamson has been scary for the past few years. The NBA's most dangerous scorer at the basket is about to play with the best spacing he's ever had. That's simple and it's deadly.
11. Sacramento Kings
2023-24 offensive rating: 116.2
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 13
The Pelicans are terrifying from a health standpoint. The Kings are safe. De'Aaron Fox, DeMar DeRozan and Domantas Sabonis rarely get hurt. But the Pelicans have a much more harmonious array of skill sets than the Kings do. The Zion-plus-spacing formula is an obvious path to dunks and 3s. The Kings never got to the rim last year. They took among the most 3s in the league, but DeRozan practically never shoots them. He'll likely help their relatively low free-throw rate. He was one of the rare high-usage players to get to the line more often after the All-Star break a season ago than he did before. He's also 35 and adjusting to a new offense with a lot of mouths to feed. The Kings are a pretty safe offensive bet. They'll be good because they'll almost always have their best players. It's just fair to be dubious of potential greatness given the impact DeRozan will likely have on their shot diet and the potential decline that could come with age.
12. Memphis Grizzlies
2023-24 offensive rating: 106.8
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 30
The Grizzlies have ranked as high as No. 4 offensively in healthy Ja Morant years, but this is typically the range in which they linger. There are reasons to believe Memphis is better today than it was offensively back when the Grizzlies were snagging No. 2 seeds. Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. should all now be in their primes. Zach Edey can bring back the bruising, rebounding center archetype they preferred next to Jackson in the past, and he brings things to the table offensively that Steven Adams did not. But so much of the success Memphis had in those healthy Morant seasons ironically boiled down to what they did without Morant. Even at his best, Morant is a relatively injury-prone player, and Tyus Jones was essential to keeping the Memphis offense afloat without him. Maybe Marcus Smart and GG Jackson can do so this season, but after last season's disaster and the general outlier nature of their success with Jones starting for Morant, this seems like the safe range for them.
13. Golden State Warriors
2023-24 offensive rating: 116.9
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 9
The Warriors get drastically worse on offense whenever Stephen Curry sits. This has been true for more than a decade. It's pretty intuitive: it's a lot easier to score when you have Stephen Curry. This means more now than it has in the past, though, because there's no longer a shot-creating safety net. The roster isn't overflowing with star power anymore. There's no Kevin Durant. There's not even a Jordan Poole or a Chris Paul. Curry missed only eight games last season, but he missed 44 combined in the two seasons prior. Golden State outperforming last season's offensive numbers with Curry is plausible. Brandin Podziemski and Jonathan Kuminga have plenty of room to grow. Buddy Hield has quietly been a more effective shooter than post-injury Klay Thompson. Maybe Andrew Wiggins plays at something closer to his typical level this season. But if Curry misses any sort of time, that's going to torpedo this offense, and now that he's 36, it just doesn't seem reasonable to assume he'll play 74 games every year.
14. Los Angeles Lakers
2023-24 offensive rating: 115.4
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 15
The Lakers had the No. 15 offense overall last season, but they ranked third from the moment they permanently added Rui Hachimura to the starting lineup through the end of the season. Laker fans would argue that starting that lineup all season, plus the potential improvement from Darvin Ham to JJ Redick at coach, means that a top-10 season-long ranking should be the expectation. The truth is more complicated. Yes, the Lakers scored very well once they settled on a lineup... but that lineup itself was only good on offense at 116 points per 100 possessions, not elite. Their offense also relied defensive-minded role players like Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent being injured. Both should play this season, though Vanderbilt is still currently hurt. Most importantly, the Lakers can't rely on last season's health. A lot of their offensive success relied on the fact that LeBron James and Anthony Davis rarely missed games. They combined to miss 17 in total last season. In the three seasons prior, they averaged more than 60. Lineups featuring both of them were great offensively. With just one they were merely decent. With neither they were predictably dreadful. The Lakers are slightly better equipped to handle the absence of a star than the Warriors simply because they have two of them, but much like Golden State, Los Angeles is banking on unrealistic health to hit previous offensive benchmarks.
15. Cleveland Cavaliers
2023-24 offensive rating: 114.7
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 16
The glass half-full view on Cleveland's offense is that it just finished No. 16 despite missing 52 combined games out of Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. They'll likely be healthier this season, and they've upgraded at coach with Kenny Atkinson. The glass half-empty view is that they're still playing two non-shooting big men and a lot of their offensive success last season came when one of them (Evan Mobley) was injured, the Garland and Mitchell absences were sequenced in such a way that they mostly missed games in which the other played, thus allowing the other to increase his usage, and they got career-best shooting seasons out of their two defense-first wings, Isaac Okoro and Dean Wade. There are pathways to the top 10 if everything goes right, but the truth is that until the Mobley-Allen pairing is broken up, this is a team that will primarily win on defense. An average offense isn't ideal, but it's enough for Cleveland to win a lot of regular-season games.
16. Houston Rockets
2023-24 offensive rating: 113.7
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 20
Houston's offense was only around average during Alperen Sengun's minutes last season, a scary signal for any team's overall prospects. Typically, you want to dominate the minutes your star plays and survive the ones he doesn't. But Houston landed on something meaningful after Sengun got hurt last season, ranking fifth offensively from the moment he went down through the end of the season by turning Amen Thompson into their center offensively and handing the keys over to Jalen Green. This came against a weak schedule and Sengun will be back this season, but what this shows is that the Rockets are uniquely equipped to adapt offensively. Sengun is their best offensive player, and even though he isn't an All-Star (yet, he came close last season), the Rockets have so many worthwhile young players with very different skill sets that once you factor in their versatility and anticipated growth it gets pretty hard to argue that they won't at least be average on offense. The Sengun lineups should be better with a year of seasoning. The non-Sengun lineups should be better after the Green-Thompson experiment. Reed Sheppard can shoot from Jupiter. Cam Whitmore flashed serious upside as a rookie. And when things get tight, it's nice to have a veteran, former All-Star point guard in Fred VanVleet to calm things down. The Rockets are probably a year or two away from their real push into the playoffs, but they're going to take a real step from their .500 finish a year ago.
17. Minnesota Timberwolves
2023-24 offensive rating: 114.6
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 17
An identical overall offensive ranking for Minnesota feels appropriate. The Timberwolves are going to be worse early this season than they were a year ago. Integrating ball-handlers is hard. Julius Randle will not be a seamless fit. Even as a power forward, Towns is a very good shooter and Randle is an inconsistent one. Spacing was already at a premium in Minnesota. Donte DiVincenzo will help on that front, and that's where there's room for longer-term optimism. The Timberwolves now go eight-deep with starting-caliber players. Eventually, they're going to find the right mix of those players. That might mean trading Randle. That might mean shaking up the lineups so that Naz Reid, a better shooter than Randle, is starting. DiVincenzo may close games. The specifics are still to be determined, but Minnesota has the capacity to survive offensively when Anthony Edwards rests. They didn't a year ago. That doesn't mean they're going to be great on offense, but it gives them a chance to at least tread water overall. When you defend as well as Minnesota does, you can survive a slightly below-average offense.
18. Miami Heat
2023-24 offensive rating: 113.3
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 21
The first question here is how much Jimmy Butler we're getting. Miami's offense lives on the Butler minutes and dies when he rests. Count me as skeptic that his impending free agency will drastically alter his availability. He's 35. Injuries happen at that age. If he forces it through the smaller ones he's only increasing the risk of bigger ones. The emergence of Kel'el Ware as a possible draft steal in the preseason has significant long-term ramifications for the Heat. In the short-term, a serious role for Ware probably hurts the offense. Aside from the fact that rookies tend to be negatives, two-big lineups rarely work on offense, and Bam Adebayo isn't giving up minutes. All that said, there are plenty of smaller reasons to buy into overall improvement for the Heat on offense. A full year of Terry Rozier will help. The Heat needed an extra ball-handler. Nikola Jovic and Jaime Jaquez were both ahead of schedule a year ago, and with Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro still in place, there is plenty of shooting on the roster even if fitting all of it into defensively viable lineups will be a challenge. The Heat have been a defense-first team for years now. The offense won't be great. They'll manage if it hovers around average.
19. Atlanta Hawks
2023-24 offensive rating: 116.4
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 12
Early in his career, Trae Young made a habit of lifting miserable rosters up the leaderboard as perhaps the league's most underrated generator of team offense. But over the past two seasons, the Hawks with Young haven't been that much better than the Hawks without him. You can probably thank Dejounte Murray for that. The two didn't fit together on offense, but Murray could lift Atlanta enough in bench minutes to keep the overall offensive rating high. Murray is gone, and with him is any hope that the bench can survive. Will Young be able to make up for that with the starters? He did so early in his career, but it's just really hard to get excited about the supporting cast here. Young forwards Jalen Johnson, Zaccharie Risacher and Dyson Daniels are all promising in other ways, but none of them are reliable, high-volume 3-point shooters yet. Bogdan Bogdanovic is, but health has been a major issue throughout his Hawks tenure and playing him and Young together might not be defensively viable. If Young misses games Atlanta's offense is sunk. This is around the portion of the list teams with one high-end creator and a roster with limited shooting tend to end up.
20. Chicago Bulls
2023-24 offensive rating: 114
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 19
The on-off numbers from last season suggest that the Bulls are going to miss DeMar DeRozan quite a bit now that he's a King, but they don't tell the whole story. With a healthier Zach LaVine during the 2022-23, the Bulls only dipped slightly during DeRozan's rest. We're presuming that LaVine is at least better and more available than he was last season, and even if he isn't, Coby White's leap gives Chicago at least one meaningful creator. Josh Giddey will make it two. For all of his postseason and defensive flaws, Giddey is a pretty valuable regular-season floor-raiser. Oklahoma City's offense was significantly better with him on the floor last season, after all. Having a player that can consistently generate pace and easy buckets for teammates matters quite a bit during the 82-game slog. The Bulls are less talented than they were with DeRozan, but they'll theoretically play faster and have a better shot-profile. That's enough to keep them in the same general area of the leaderboard.
21. Orlando Magic
2023-24 offensive rating: 112.9
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 22
The Magic probably aren't going to be a good offense until they add or develop a shot-creating guard, but there's too much talent here to drop them any lower. Adding shooting never hurts. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is purely additive in that respect. Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner (and almost everyone in the rotation, truthfully) are early enough on the aging curve that we can still expect year-to-year improvement. A great defense creates easier offense. Only the Thunder scored more off of opponent's turnovers last season. But this is still a roster that lacks shooting overall. There's low-hanging fruit here in terms of volume, but neither Banchero nor Wagner are the sort of traditional drive-and-kick players that create easy 3s. The only ball-handler here who could see a significantly bigger role this season is Anthony Black, who isn't much of a shooter himself. For now, the Magic are waiting things out. They'll win on defense while they determine if they can internally cultivate a passable offense or if they need to trade their way toward one.
22. Los Angeles Clippers
2023-24 offensive rating: 117.9
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 4
Before you say "Paul George can't possibly be worth 18 spots," don't worry, he isn't. There are a lot of red flags here. Kawhi Leonard played 68 games last season. He hadn't done that since 2017 before last season. It's not even reasonable to say his injuries linger anymore. They're practically permanent. After playing only two games in the postseason due to what initially appeared to be a day-to-day issue, he's since missed both the Olympics and preseason. The Clippers can sustain more Leonard absences if James Harden is still James Harden. He certainly wasn't down the stretch last season, averaging below 15 points on 39-30-89 shooting splits. The offseason additions were defense-centric. Derrick Jones Jr. is a shaky shooter coming off of a strong season playing alongside the NBA's best pick-and-roll creator. He seems ripe for regression. Kris Dunn Jr. is just a non-shooter. Maybe they can squeeze a bit more offense out of bench units with Nic Batum at backup center? Ty Lue has done so in the past. But beyond the aging stars and Norm Powell, there just isn't much scoring to be found on this roster. Combine all of that with George's absence and on paper at least, it looks like the Clippers are going to take a sizable step back on offense.
23. Utah Jazz
2023-24 offensive rating: 114.5
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 18
The Jazz are among the team's I most expect to make me look bad. Will Hardy's teams consistently outperform their talent offensively. They finished 18th last season and ninth in 2023 despite Danny Ainge kneecapping the team at the deadline in both seasons. The difference between this team and those groups is how young this one is. Players like Keyonte George, Taylor Hendricks, Cody Williams and Isaiah Collier have significant long-term upside... but none of them can legally drink yet. The Jazz are going to take the right shots, but there's less shooting here than the reputations involved might suggest. John Collins and Jordan Clarkson have been good 3-point shooters in the past. They haven't been lately. The ranking will take a hit in March and April if Ainge's usual tendencies continue. The Jazz will continue to outperform their talent in general. This is just the season on their expected path toward contention in which they are least equipped to do so.
24. Charlotte Hornets
2023-24 offensive rating: 108.6
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 28
File this under "things that feel like they happened a million years ago": the Hornets ranked eighth on offense in 2022. The roster is obviously pretty different today than it was then, but the basic premise still stands if LaMelo Ball is healthy. Play fast, shoot a lot of 3s and good things tend to happen. Ball doesn't know how to play slow, and Charles Lee is coming from Boston, so 3-pointers will be plentiful. There's just not much to get excited about beyond the initial premise. This is a young roster even by rebuilding standards. Taj Gibson and Seth Curry are the only players on the team with more than five years of experience, and neither factor meaningfully into the rotation. As promising as Brandon Miller's rookie season was, he's still in just his second season. He has a ways to go. Ball's health is going to be a perpetual question mark until he proves otherwise. This could be a fun bad offense with some high highs, but overall, it's still likely to rank near the bottom of the league.
25. San Antonio Spurs
2023-24 offensive rating: 109.3
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 26
If the Spurs take a major step this season, it is far likelier to come on defense than on offense. As exciting as Victor Wembanyama was down the stretch last season, there wasn't really a version of the Spurs that succeeded as an offense. Even the minutes Wembanyama played with Tre Jones, which San Antonio won overall, the Spurs were below-average on offense and stellar on defense. There are still a lot of raw young players here. Stephon Castle can't shoot yet. Jeremy Sochan made strides last season, but he still has a ways to go. Only the Grizzlies and Blazers hit a lower percentage of their 3s last season. Chris Paul is going to pay long-term dividends. He'll teach the young players the right habits. He'll also turn 40 this season. It's really, really hard to be a good offense with shaky shooting and a point guard who never gets to the rim. Wembanyama is ready. The rest of the roster isn't. That's fine. Slow and steady wins the race.
26. Toronto Raptors
2023-24 offensive rating: 111.8
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 24
The inherent problem with expecting anything out of this Toronto offense is that there are major questions surrounding its three most important players. Scottie Barnes shot 29% from 3-point range in his first two seasons. Then he shot 39% from October through December and just jumper was pronounced fixed. His regression from January on to just above 26% suggests that what happened early last season probably wasn't sustainable. Speaking of unsustainable, RJ Barrett made 60% of his 2s and 39% of his 3s as a Raptor. Kevin Durant didn't do that last season. Barrett is due some regression. And then there's Immanuel Quickley. His efficiency inside of the arc did regress after arriving in Toronto last season as he transitioned from a reserve to a starter. He got more comfortable as the season progressed, but it's still not clear what sort of ball-handling load he can manage. If all three pan out? The Raptors could be decent offensively. In the likelier event that all three have up-and-down seasons, you're probably looking at a shaky offense.
27. Detroit Pistons
2023-24 offensive rating: 109
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 27
The Pistons had the dubious distinction of being the only team in the NBA last season to rank 25th or lower in both 3-point attempts and 3-point percentage. They proceeded to use their high lottery pick on Ron Holland, a high-usage scorer who shot 23.9% on 3s in the G-League. Their two expensive offseason additions meant to improve the spacing -- Tobias Harris and Tim Hardaway Jr. -- shot 36.5% and 35.2% respectively on catch-and-shoot 3s last season. They want to create their own shots, not clear the runway for Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey. If you can't shoot you can't score. The Pistons can't shoot. Therefore they're not going to score.
28. Portland Trail Blazers
2023-24 offensive rating: 107.6
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 29
Any Blazers optimism coming into the season relies on the fact that there are still plenty of worthwhile veterans on an otherwise tanking roster. Players like Jerami Grant, Deandre Ayton and Anfernee Simons tend not to survive rebuilds. They're all here. They were also here a year ago and the Blazers were dreadful on offense. Portland was the worst 3-point shooting team in the NBA last season. It is relying on a second-year primary ball-handler in Scoot Henderson whose rookie campaign was a major disappointment. Those veterans could be traded at any time. Portland is playing for ping pong balls this season and the scoreboard will reflect that.
29. Brooklyn Nets
2023-24 offensive rating: 112.4
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 23
There is an optimist's view of the Brooklyn Nets that could take their offense up to, well, maybe not the middle of this list, but at least not the bottom five. What if Ben Simmons looks like Ben Simmons again? Cam Thomas might average 30 points! There are wings here that can shoot like Cam Johnson. The trouble here is that you don't even need to poke holes in those arguments. They're already there. Even if Simmons is healthy, which is a laughably sized "if" at this point, all of the jokes about Simmons at this stage are more or less true. In last season's limited sample, he racked up more than 10 times as many passes (749) and shot attempts (74). He's afraid of getting fouled. Thomas might post gaudy numbers. He won't get there efficiently. He averaged more shot attempts per game than LeBron James and Nikola Jokic last season and still averaged only 22.5 points. Johnson will be traded at the earliest convenience. The Nets traded significant draft capital to get control of their own first-round pick back. They signaled to the entire basketball world that they intend to be bad this season. Either it will happen organically or management will put its thumb on the scale.
30. Washington Wizards
2023-24 offensive rating: 110.2
2023-24 offensive ranking: No. 25
Only two Wizards played at least 700 minutes last season and had an on-court offensive rating above 110: Daniel Gafford and Tyus Jones. Both of them now play for other teams. Lower the threshold to 109 and you add three more players: Deni Avdija, Kyle Kuzma and Landry Shamet. Only Kuzma remains. I have no earthly idea how a 15-win team managed to lose this much talent. The Wizards somehow lost talent that they never seemed to have. Let's take a look at their offseason additions. Saddiq Bey got a three-year deal... but is expected to miss all or most of the season while recovering from a torn ACL. Jonas Valanciunas is in trade rumors before the season even has even begun. Malcolm Brogdon has a torn ligament in his right thumb. Alex Sarr, the No. 2 overall pick, had an 0-for-15 shooting game in Summer League. This is advanced tanking.
