From the resurgent Los Angeles Lakers to Joel Embiid's incredible start, the NBA is full of intriguing new storylines early this season.
Our Insiders debate and discuss the best things happening in the NBA.
1. What is the best developing storyline in the West?
Amin Elhassan, ESPN Insider: The Baby Lakers are starting to get it, and the best-case scenario is currently playing out in L.A. The young players are buying into the demands of the coaching staff in terms of executing the offensive playbook and defensive vision, the veterans are buying into their roles as shepherds who know when to get out of the way of the flock and the fans are buying into a word that for the longest time was taboo: rebuilding.
Chris Herring, FiveThirtyEight/ESPN.com: The Lakers. Luke Walton, realizing the team is better off staggering D'Angelo Russell and Jordan Clarkson, has the club playing more cohesively than last season, when Kobe Bryant often broke the flow of games. Improved guard play, along with the surprisingly efficient showings from Julius Randle, is part of why Los Angeles is tied for its best start (at 4-3) since Phil Jackson was coach.
David Thorpe, ESPN Insider: Marc Gasol. Anthony Davis. James Harden. DeMarcus Cousins. They all star on tragically flawed teams that don't appear to have a puncher's chance to be contenders this season or next, barring a huge move or two.
Think about what those four guys could do on a good team. I do -- all the time. There are other good players who could be headed elsewhere, but these four men are game-changers if they can land on a new team this season. I'm specifically interested in an East team trading for one to be able to compete with Cleveland.
Jeremias Engelmann, ESPN Insider: The Lakers are playing very enjoyable basketball, and they're winning games despite having a very young team. No one expected them to make much noise this season, but with four wins in seven games -- including a blowout win against the Warriors -- Luke Walton might have this team on course for the playoffs.
Kevin Pelton, ESPN Insider: The L.A. Lakers being fun to watch. By virtue of their market and rabid fan base, the Lakers are always going to be a prominent part of NBA coverage, so it's more interesting when they're fun. I'm not yet convinced the Lakers are going to remain competitive, but at the very least their young talent makes them worth watching and discussing.
2. Which West player is most intriguing so far?
Herring: Kawhi Leonard. It's scary that a player known for his defense could repeatedly improve his scoring average the way Leonard has -- often by three or four points a season, while still playing efficiently. At 26 points a night, he's up more than five PPG from last season while assisting at a career-best rate. He goes to the line nine times a game -- twice as much as last season.
Thorpe: Devin Booker and Zach LaVine are easy answers -- and Kawhi Leonard continues to impress and surprise -- but I like TJ Warren as a pure scorer and Julius Randle as a stat-stuffer who competes super hard. Both players were already branded as being "just OK" by most NBA people as recently as early in this season despite being very young. They are reminders that in an increasingly challenging league, especially defensively, it takes time and a good coaching plan for nearly every guy to figure it out.
Engelmann: At 30, George Hill is playing the best basketball of his career. His turnover rate has always been elite, but he has now reached new heights with a 4.4 assist-turnover ratio. All the while, he's shooting 60 percent on 2s and a stellar 43 percent on 3s while scoring 20 points per game.
Pelton: James Harden. I was skeptical that the shift to calling Harden a point guard would make any difference given how much he handled the ball as the Houston Rockets' nominal shooting guard, and maybe that would be true if not for Mike D'Antoni's system. Either way, the fact that Harden is leading the league in assists by a wide margin makes him intriguing to watch.
Elhassan: Kawhi Leonard. The jump in his offensive game is equal parts skill development and opportunity, and it has been remarkable to watch him grow into an assertive -- and at times dominant -- offensive player. His usage rate has climbed steadily every season and yet his efficiency has never been better.
3. What is the best developing storyline in the East?
Thorpe: You think Cleveland will lose in November? I'm not at all sure it will. The Cavs might get complacent, which we have indeed seen in some games, but they look like they are having so much fun. It's amazing what those last three wins in the Finals have done for this team's chemistry. Cleveland looks like a team ready for anything.
Pelton: The depth of the conference. While the Cleveland Cavaliers still look like the heavy favorites in the East, there appear to be plenty of challengers who could threaten the Cavaliers in the conference finals. Even with the Boston Celtics starting slowly, four teams have started 4-2 or better and five have outscored opponents by at least five points per game.
Elhassan: These aren't your daddy's Charlotte Hornets! Charlotte has quietly put together one of the best net ratings in the early part of the season, combining a surprisingly efficient offense with the trademark withering defense that they've been identified with since the arrival of coach Steve Clifford.
Herring: Nothing about the conference is really all that surprising a development so far. If anything, Cleveland appears to be much improved from last season. The Cavs' hot start raises the question of whether they deserved more respect -- and perhaps deserved to be the favorite to win it all, even after Golden State signed Kevin Durant -- than they initially received to begin the season.
Engelmann: Atlanta has the NBA's second-best point differential and second-best defense, in no small part thanks to Dwight Howard, who seems to be rejuvenated with his new team. He's sporting the second-best scoring rate of his career (21.7 points per 36 minutes), grabs almost 16 rebounds and blocks 2.6 shots per 36, and leads the league in field goal percentage.
4. Which East player is most intriguing so far?
Pelton: Joel Embiid. I know, Chad Ford and I already wrote about Embiid on Monday, but how can anyone else be more intriguing? We're talking about a 7-footer who hasn't played for two years because of injuries who's using more than 40 percent of the Philadelphia 76ers' plays, making 3s, and nicknaming himself after the description of the plan the team's former GM had for rebuilding. You can't stop watching Embiid on and off the court.
Herring: Joel Embiid. He's not anywhere near being a bona fide star yet, as he turns the ball over too much and fouls at a high rate. But he has already illustrated that he's unusually talented for a 7-footer in terms of his ability to roam the perimeter on defense, protect the rim and shoot from outside. If he can build on this and stay healthy, his addition will have been worth Philly's long wait.
Engelmann: DeMar DeRozan, who currently leads the league in scoring with 33.7 PPG. He'll most likely come down to earth somewhat, but for now, DeRozan is hitting a blistering 54 percent of his 2-point attempts. What's remarkable is that most of his attempts are contested midrange shots. Thanks to his elite athleticism, he rarely seems bothered by the defender, though.
Thorpe: I'm a Kevin Love fan -- unabashedly so. I don't think he is playing as well as I have seen him in the past, yet here he is averaging more than 20 points and 8 rebounds per game on the league's best team. He has even more to offer as a passer from the pinch post and overall as a shooter. Kyrie Irving had been terrific until the Philly game. I would love to see more two-man game action with the two of them.
Elhassan: DeMar DeRozan starring in Revenge of the Midrange. As the league has moved beyond the 3-point line, DeRozan is feasting on the very shot that most defenses are willing to concede. That he's leading the league in scoring as a wing player while having made only two 3s thus far is nothing short of mind-boggling, but also gives some confidence for sustainability. Put differently: It's not like he's scoring doing things we're not accustomed to seeing him do.
5. What has inspired the most optimism so far this season?
Engelmann: The Warriors might not be as good as everyone thought they would be, which is a welcome sight for all other playoff teams. No one expected them to already have suffered two losses of 20-plus points just six games into the season. Instead of the Warriors walloping everyone, we might actually get to see an exciting race to the No. 1 seed -- and more exciting playoffs.
Elhassan: The possibility of a league utopian fantasy of both teams in Los Angeles being competitive and interesting. You can argue that we had that in 2006, when both franchises made the playoffs, but this season the Clippers are legitimate title contenders while the Lakers have a world of upside moving forward. Now if we could only get the New York metropolitan area to get its act together.
Herring: The studs of the 2015 draft class. Karl-Anthony Towns was a foregone conclusion, but it has been encouraging to also see D'Angelo Russell, Kristaps Porzingis, Myles Turner and Devin Booker off hot starts in their second campaigns. It's not a stretch to think the class could eventually go down as one of the better ones we've ever seen.
Thorpe: I grew up loving the Lakers, first because of Jerry West, then Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy (loved Norm Nixon for a year, too!). I like the NBA when the Lakers are fun to watch, and thanks to Luke Walton, they are trending in that direction, showing lots of movement in the offense with sudden ball screens mixed in. Lots of heart and hustle, too.
And how long has it been since they had swagger that wasn't coming from Kobe? Just think about it like this: What if Boston was able to get one of the big names I listed in Question 1, and then the Lakers did, too? Yeah, that'd be pretty sweet for the league.
Pelton: The way NBA players are using their platform to speak out on issues of social justice. Was it really just a few years ago we were discussing why this generation of players wasn't as interested in these topics as their predecessors? The past six months have revealed that current NBA players are no less thoughtful or interested in these topics. When the time was right, they brought their influence to bear on gun violence, racial inequality, the need to vote and more.