You know you're supposed to stay calm heading into a new NBA season. You know you're preseason reactions are overwrought, you know that almost nothing that appears locked in after a week or two will stay that way. You know that no matter how messy your team starts, there's always a chance they could finish the season with their first title in 53 years.

But knowing how to be a responsible NBA fan and being a responsible NBA fan are two different things. And it's easy to get lost in the sauce in this narrow window before the games start and all your preceived notions unravel. The FanSided NBA team is just like you which means we have some radioactive, lava-hot takes percolating and we're brave enough to write them down so you can throw them back in our faces later.

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Neither the Knicks or the 76ers land a top-four seed ...

The Eastern Conference is already being framed as a horse race between the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers but I’m not buying it. The Knicks won it all with one of the most incredible collections of clutch performances we’ve ever seen, something that’s going to be impossible to sustain across the regular season. The roster is slightly worse with Andre Drummond swapped in for Mitchell Robinson, they’ll have to battle post-title complacency and the sour vibes of James Dolan pinching pennies with KAT and Josh Hart. The 76ers may have an incredible starting five but what about the 20-30 games where LeBron and Embiid are out and they have to win with Jaylen Brown leading Maxey, VJ and some guys?

The Knicks and 76ers are both too talented to fall completely out of the playoffs but I think the Pacers, Raptors, Heat and Pistons finish top-four, in some order.

... but the Hawks will

The Eastern Conference is stacked and everyone is excited to see the Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, and Toronto Raptors compete for home-court advantage. But Atlanta’s late-season surge wasn’t some kind of fluke that can be brushed aside. The Hawks, which were the only team to win more than one game against the Knicks during the playoffs, are a well-oiled machine.

Their offense flows freely with multiple points of entry and a surplus of shooters, shot creators, and playmakers. Their defense just added one of the absolute best on-ball specialists in the NBA in Luguentz Dort. And, for the first time ever, Jalen Johnson went through the summer and training camp with the knowledge that he’s the go-to player. No Trae Young hero ball, just team-oriented basketball and a roster full of players who go all-out on defense. A tough night for every team—and the recipe for a 50-win season.

Cameron Boozer will make the All-Star Game as a rookie

This is, historically, an extraordinarily rare outcome. Rookies just don’t catch on this quickly. Blake Griffin was the last “rookie” to be an All-Star, but he was an injury redshirt. Before him, it was guys like Yao Ming, Tim Duncan and Shaq. Boozer, who only recently turned 19, is also the youngest player in the NBA this season. So my hot take could flame out spectacularly.

That said, Boozer is so far ahead of the curve; much like his All-Star father, he already has NBA strength and a functional kind of athleticism. It won’t take long for Boozer to adjust to the speed and physicality of NBA basketball. He’s also brilliant; a damn near genius-level processor, able to read, anticipate and make the right decisions with the basketball 99 times out of 100. He is going to function as the primary hub for the Grizzlies, who I anticipate will be much better than folks realize. If Boozer puts up 20-10-5 and drags Memphis toward the middle of the Western Conference, that may just be enough to join the history books as a rookie All-Star.

The Pacers will be better than ever this season 

Many people are sleeping on the Indiana Pacers this season, but I'm wide awake. I get it, Tyrese Haliburton's return is a swing factor, and the East is loaded. Regardless, this team nearly won it all in 2025 (and might have had Haliburton not gotten injured in Game 7). And they got even better. Yes, Ivica Zubac isn't a floor spacer, like Myles Turner, but he's a much better interior presence on both sides of the floor, something the Pacers lacked despite their success in 2025. Furthermore, Kelly Oubre Jr. is a better fit and a better overall player than Bennedict Mathurin.

We already saw how much of a matchup nightmare this team is due to their plethora of creation and shooting. Now, they're more balanced. So if you are still sleeping on the Pacers, I implore you to set your alarm and wake up right now. This team will be back and better than ever. 

Ausar Thompson can win DPOY even if Wemby plays 65 games

This is a stretch based on some tangible facts. The Detroit Pistons had the 13th-best relative defense of all time last year. If they can get higher than that with Thompson leading the charge, we could see a narrative shift. The Pistons had a better defense than San Antonio last year. If Thompson is leading the charge without an outstanding rim protector like he had last year in Isaiah Stewart, the narrative could shift. Wemby will have the block and rim protection numbers, but if Ausar leads the league in stocks (third last year) and ups his blocks per game, the narrative may shift.

Lastly, if the Pistons are the best defense in the league but fall off a cliff without Thompson, some voters could value that. San Antonio won't be great without Wemby, but there's a world where voters marvel at the impact of a wing over a Goliath due to how rare it is for a 6-foot-7er to sway defense that much. Voter fatigue hasn't kicked in for Wemby yet, but we'll get there. If Ausar is all-time destructive on an all-time defense, he'll have a serious case. 

The Nets will be a top five NBA League Pass team

Will the Brooklyn Nets be good? Of course not. Will they be fun? You bet. That’s what matters when choosing a League Pass team at the end of the day. The young backcourt featuring Egor Demin, Mikel Brown Jr. and Nolan Traore (all 20 years old, by the way), are not only fun to watch by themselves, but should gel together. You never know what kind of shots Michael Porter Jr. and Julius Randle will take (and make) at any given moment, which might be frustrating to watch from a win-loss perspective, but is fun to watch casually.

This team lacks any semblance of rim protection which, again, is frustrating when looking at wins and losses, but should lead to a ton of offense for the opposition, and offense is fun! Jordi Fernandez has gotten much less talented Nets teams to play competitive, scrappy basketball, so why can’t they play a bunch of competitive high-ish-level shootouts? They might not win many of them, and I might be a homer, but don’t listen to Zach Lowe’s list; they will be fun, with as promising a future as they’ve had since moving to Brooklyn (not that that’s saying much). 

The Wizards will make the playoffs

Over the last three seasons, the Washington Wizards have won 50 games. Total. (Despite that, they somehow managed to avoid having a Colangelo foisted upon them. Strange.) But this year, they're poised to go from a cellar-dwellar to a playoff team. They added Trae Young and Anthony Davis ahead of last year's trade deadline, landed AJ Dybantsa with the No. 1 overall pick in this year's draft and added Deandre Ayton, Khris Middleton and Tre Mann this offseason to complement their young core. And now that they won't be transparently tanking, that combination of veteran experience and youth will help guide them to the playoffs for the first time since the 2020-21 campaign. Sleep on them at your own peril.