**Contender pitch:** Over the past few seasons, the Miami Heat consistently over perform in both the regular and postseason. In the playoffs in the past three years, they journeyed to the 2020 NBA Finals from the #6 seed, lost to the eventual champion Bucks in round one, and then made it to within one win of another Finals. The key pieces from these past runs–Jimmy, Bam, Herro–are still around and the latter two are getting better every season.
**Pretender pitch:** The loss of PJ Tucker will be felt deeply, plus Jimmy is now 33 years old and still can’t shoot perimeter shots with any sort of efficiency. Adebayo and Herro are great young pieces but Herro might be best as a sixth man and unless Bam gets significantly better as a scorer, this offense will struggle greatly in the playoffs against elite defenses.
**Conclusion:** *Pretender*, not because they declined, but because so many teams in their tier improved. The Bucks are healthy; the Celtics added depth and grew internally; the Nets will have stability come playoff time, and the Hawks and Cavaliers have better star talent and arguably better overall rosters on paper.
*(*[*Enjoy Basketball*](https://enjoybasketball.beehiiv.com/p/nba-teams-contenders-pretenders)*)*
4 comments
Neither, they’re a really good team, but their just missing a few pieces to really contend.
Is it really ‘overperforming’ if they do it consistently? Seems like a more reasonable description of those details is ‘talking heads gave them less credit for their talent and success than they deserved.’
Is the team that was in the finals or 1 win away from it twice in the last three seasons contenders or pretenders? There fixed that for you. *sighs* In reality it feels like we’re lacking a piece to be a STRONG contender but any team consistently making deep playoff runs is a contender. All it takes is one injury to change a playoff series.
Let’s go one by one:
Bucks: I think clearly the best team in the East. Miami still finished with a better record than them last year but they are the one team I am worried about
Celtics: added an injury prone Brogdon and Williams is already out 6 weeks. Horford is a year older, and yes they will improve internally but so will the Heat. Tatum and Brown are older than Herro and Bam.
Nets: On paper the Nets were better the last two years and didn’t make it past the second round. Saying they will have stability is extremely optimistic
Hawks and Cavs: young talent doesn’t mean they will perform in the playoffs. Look at Trae Young last year, you need proven vets