Lessons Learned

Another NBA season is over. What are the biggest takeaways?

Good Morning! The 2024-25 NBA season ended yesterday as only it could. Today we’ll go through all the events of a wild 24 hours before taking a bigger picture look at what we’ve learned over the last 12 months.

News & Notes

🏀 Congrats to the Oklahoma City Thunder on winning the 2025 NBA title. By any metric, they were not only the most dominant team of this regular season, but one of the more impressive teams in recent NBA history, led by an MVP who put up generational numbers in an old school package. As I’ll get into in a bit, this win was the culmination of some incredibly savvy team-building, but also a bit of right place, right time good fortune with the Paul George trade of six years ago. Now, they’re as poised to as any team since the mid-aughts Warriors to have an extended run of contention behind a rotation that contains one player over the age of 26. Incredible run for the Thunder.

🏀 Sadly this Game 7 and indeed these NBA Finals will not be remembered solely for Oklahoma City’s victory, but also for the torn achilles Tyrese Haliburton suffered midway through the first quarter of this game. Indiana hung around for a while and even took a one-point lead into halftime, but eventually the loss of Haliburton was too much to overcome. Nowhere was that more apparent than in the turnover department - Haliburton’s specialty - where Indiana coughed it up 23 times leading to 32 Thunder points. Several Pacers tried to step into the void and they did cut a 22-point lead down to 10 with 2:32 remaining, but the hill was ultimately too high to scale. Regardless of the injury (and maybe even bolstered by the injury), this Indiana run will go down as one of the most impressive postseason performances in the history of the league.

🏀 Inevitably, in the wake of a second torn achilles by a prominent Eastern Conference star in the span of six weeks, the conversation will inevitably turn to next year’s East being the most wide open conference in recent memory. The Knicks should be as big a beneficiary of that reality as anyone, but out of respect for the recency of the injury and the incredible accomplishment of Indy’s season, we’ll save that conversation for another day (probably tomorrow).

🏀 Congrats to Isaiah Hartenstein. Absolutely one of my favorite Knicks ever even though he was only here for two seasons. I said the day he signed in OKC that he would have been crazy not to take the money, not only because of the financial windfall, but because it was a basketball situation tailor made for his talents. He showed that in spades over the last eight months, and I could not possibly be happier for the guy. If the Knicks couldn’t win the chip this year, I’m thrilled that he did.

🏀 Kevin Durant is now officially on his fifth NBA team, trailing only Moses Malone and Shaquille O’Neal among pantheon level players in league history. His latest gambit takes him to Houston, where he was sent from Phoenix in exchange for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the 10th pick in Wednesday’s draft, and five second rounders. It was a staggeringly low haul in comparison to what the Suns gave up for him less than three years ago, which speaks to his age, his impending extension, and his own power in dictating which teams he would be happy playing for.

Lessons Learned: 5 Big Takeaways

I started writing this article yesterday morning, about 12 hours before Game 7 was set to tip off. My plan was to write the bones of it early and then fill in the blanks later after the champ had been crowned.

And then the game unfolded like it did, with Haliburton going down after just seven minutes with three made 3-pointers already on the ledger. Obviously we’ll never know what would have happened had he not gone down, and it’s very likely that the favored Thunder would have pulled out the game on their home court. Regardless of the injury, they are champs and they never need to apologize to anyone for how they won it.

For today’s purposes though, I’m not isolating the Thunder or the Pacers in my analysis. If the goal of analyzing an NBA season is to learn something about where the league is going and how best to position yourself for that journey, then both OKC and Indiana deserve our full attention.

And with that, here are my five biggest takeaways from the ‘24-25 campaign…

Takeaway No. 1: The Old Ways are Over

For as long as I can remember, there was only one path to an NBA title: get an all-time great player and build around his talents.

The corollary to this line of thinking was that such players could only be acquired with a pick at or near the top of the draft, which made sense when you considered the rings amassed by the likes of Russell, Kareem, Magic, Jordan, Hakeem, Duncan and O’Neal, among others.

That thinking started to change when Shaq became the first superstar to change teams in free agency over a quarter century ago, but even for two decades after that, all but one NBA champion rostered at least one star drafted by the organization.

Then things began to change again in 2019, when we started to deviate even further from the tried and true formula…

2019 Raptors: Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry, arguably Toronto’s two best players, were both acquired via trade, and none of their top three were lottery picks. Leonard was taken 15th overall in his draft class, Lowry 24th, and Pascal Siakam 27th.

2020 Lakers: With LeBron and AD leading the way, LA became the first team in NBA history to win it all with two stars who were drafted by other teams.

2021 Bucks: Both Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday were acquired via trade, while Giannis Antetokounmpo was drafted just outside the lottery. The Suns team they beat was led by a former 13th overall pick (Booker) and a 35-year-old point guard on his fifth NBA team.

2022 Warriors: The three home grown stars represented a reversion to the past, but Steph, Klay and Draymond were drafted 7th, 11th and 35th, while former top overall pick Andrew Wiggins was acquired via trade.

2023 Nuggets: Former 41st overall pick Nikola Jokic became the first second round draftee to lead his team to a title since Willis Reed. He was aided by 7th overall pick Jamal Murray and trade acquisition Aaron Gordon. The Heat team they beat were led by a former 30th overall pick acquired via trade (Butler) and a center (Bam) taken at the tail end of the lottery.

2024 Celtics: Even thought their top two players were both homegrown top-three picks, the latest Boston title team was perhaps the most radical champion yet. Other than the ‘04 Pistons, no team in the last 45 years had won a title without at least one player in the conversation for the top talent in basketball.

Until last season.

That brought us to this year, when for the first time in the history of the league, the best players on both finalists were taken outside the top 10 and drafted by a different franchise. Turning to second bananas, Jalen Williams was taken 12th while Siakam was acquired via trade after being drafted at the end of the first round. Going even further, between the entire Pacers and Thunder rosters, there are just two players taken with top-10 picks by their respective teams: former second overall selection Chet Holmgren and former sixth overall pick Ben Mathurin, who was Indy’s eighth man in this series.

It’s more of the same if we look at the runners up in each conference. The Knicks only had two rotation players they drafted, and both were second round picks who came off the bench (until a starting lineup change in Game 97, of course). The Wolves were led by former top overall pick Anthony Edwards, but only one other rotation player was drafted by Minnesota, and it was former 28th overall selection Jaden McDaniels.

It makes it kind of astounding that teams still tank as vociferously as they do. It’s been nearly two decades since we’ve had a Finals MVP who was taken with his team’s own top five pick¹ and stayed with one organization his entire career up to that point, and that was Dwyane Wade in 2006.

Perhaps this is why teams have become so comfortable trading away their entire cache of future draft assets in an effort to bolster their title chances in the present. Yes, the opportunity cost of these trades still matters, but as we’ve seen, pick-poor teams can just pivot to shipping out their stars for other teams’ picks when things start going downhill².

That being said…

Takeaway No. 2: You Don’t Need to go “All In”

If anything, this Finals was an argument for being on the opposite end of an all-in trade. Shai-Gilgeous Alexander came directly from the Clippers when they acquired Paul George as part of a package deal to also get Kawhi Leonard, while Jalen Williams was later selected with one of the picks included in that trade.

Indy’s acquisition of Tyrese Haliburton wasn’t quite the same as the OKC mega-haul because he didn’t come with a bunch of picks attached, but Sacramento was still the team getting the better present day talent in Domantas Sabonis, while the Pacers were viewed as the team breaking up a core that had run its course. A few months later, incumbent point guard Malcolm Brogdon was traded for a package that included apparent lottery bust Aaron Nesmith.

But maybe the most interesting trade of all was the deadline deal that sent Pascal Siakam from Toronto to Indiana in February of 2024. On paper, three first round picks sounds like a lot, but two of those picks have already conveyed (as the 19th and 29th choices in the ‘24 Draft) and were known to be bad picks at the time, while the final pick (Indy’s own, probably not a great one) will convey next summer.

Siakam wasn’t some slouch. He’d made multiple All-NBA teams and wasn’t yet 30 years old, but was known to want a max contract that offseason. The impending payday likely scared off a lot of teams, but four years and $189.5 million now sounds like a bargain.

Along with the trades for Derrick White and Aaron Gordon that helped spur the two previous NBA champions to victory, the Siakam deal is a great example of how there are still buy-low opportunities out there if you look hard enough.

Should this be encouraging to the Knicks? Even with the Mikal Bridges trade in the rear view mirror, I think so. This is the same front office who acquired Josh Hart for a late first, Jalen Brunson on a below-max free agent deal, and OG Anunoby for two players whose current contracts don’t look so great.

Bridges aside, the pivot point here is Karl-Anthony Towns. On paper, the Knicks got a steal: an All-NBA guy in exchange for two players unlikely to ever make an All-Star team in Minnesota and a middling first round pick. Like the Siakam deal, the trade largely came down to one team being open to paying max money where another team wasn’t. Whether Towns (or whoever New York turns Towns into) can have a Siakam-level impact remains to be seen.

That brings us to…

Takeaway No. 3: Two-way or the Highway

No, not two-way players who spend their time in the G-League; I’m talking about players who can excel on both sides of the court.

This is anything but a new revelation, but the success of the respective finalists pushed this reality to a new level.

The Thunder are the obvious poster-child for this, as their worst rotation defender (SGA) received All-Defense votes in each of the last three seasons, but the Pacers qualify just as much. Tyrese Haliburton is the bellwether, as he’s the one guy who can get targeted from time to time, but being the size of a wing goes a long way here.

(One important corollary: the old adage that true contenders must finish the season ranked in the top 10 in both offense and defense can probably be tossed out the window. Denver ranked 15th in defense two years ago while Indy ranked 14th this year. The better question: can you turn it on when it counts?)

More importantly, the Pacers have quietly become the most prolific 3-point shooting team the league has ever seen. They have nine rotation players who averaged at least 1.5 made threes per 36 minutes through the playoffs, and a 10th - TJ McConnell - who shot over 40 percent on about one attempt per game. Whereas every player on OKC sans I-Hart could shoot threes, nearly every player on Indy hunted threes whenever possible. Considering all of their epic comebacks and how they never seemed to be out of any game, this was as big a factor in their magical run as anything.

Typically when we talk about “two-way” players, the focus is on offense-first players who can also defend. To some extent, this applied to Indy. They had only one player receive All-Defense votes this season (Myles Turner with three 2nd Team votes), but all of their players were able to execute a team concept without being a weak link. This was obviously important, but was it as important as a roster full of players who can dribble, pass, and most of all, shoot?

Or maybe there’s an even better question: Did this Pacer team make us re-evaluate the importance of high end shot creation from a team’s alpha dog? Their collective skill created good shots more than any single player, but everyone had to be a willing and able ball mover (and shot maker!) to make it happen. The fact that they hung around this Game 7 for as long as they did without Haliburton is a testament to how much all of their guys bring to the table.

How does this bode for the Knicks? The most under-discussed story of the year was their collective lack of passing skill. In essence, they have more hammers than hands to swing those hammers where they need to go. Perhaps that should be something the front office can think about this summer, which leads us directly to…

Takeaway No. 4: Depth Charge

One year after the Bostons Celtics won the NBA championship with essentially seven and a half players (KP only appeared in seven playoff games), these two teams did things quite differently.

22 players appeared in non-garbage time minutes during the Finals and 20 players appeared in at least five of the seven games. Never before have we seen an NBA Finals where the 8th, 9th and occasionally 10th men weren’t viewed as liabilities merely in the game to buy time while the starters rest. The back end of Indy’s and OKC’s rotations were assets in their own right, evinced by the Pacers nearly having eight players average double figures in the Finals alone.

Among my five takeaways, this is the most obvious need for the Knicks. The easiest answer could come from within: can any of last season’s three rookies (four if you count Kevin McCullar Jr) contribute to the roster in a meaningful way? Getting the right sort of cog with the midlevel exception would also seem to be a must.

And then the biggest, scariest question of them all: does there need to be a shakeup of the core in order to maximize those who remain? One hopes a new coach will help in this department, but it’s hard to watch the defensive brilliance of the Thunder and the offensive majesty of the Pacers and think that the current core of the Knicks has what it takes to go all the way. As these teams showed, the NBA isn’t about getting the very best pieces; it’s about getting pieces that fit the best when they’re put together.

Takeaway No. 5: Young Man’s Game

For as much as it feels like this is still a league that belongs to LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry, the results of the postseason said otherwise.

Among the top 35 scorers by average on the eight conference semifinalists, only four were over the age of 30:

• 35-year-old Jimmy Butler (11th highest average)

• 31-year-old Pascal Siakam (15th highest average)

• 32-year-old Buddy Hield (19th highest average)

• 37-year-old Steph Curry (30th highest average)

Notably, Curry was injured in Game 1 of the conference semis and could never make it back onto the court. He joins stars like Kevin Durant (36 years old), Joel Embiid (31), Paul George (35), Kawhi Leonard (33), Anthony Davis (32) and Damian Lillard (34) who missed significant time this season. Curry’s team was the only one to advance to the second round.

On this note, we should probably be happy New York’s front office decided they were out on Kevin Durant before those sweepstakes ever really began.

Conclusion

What does it take to win in the NBA in 2026 and beyond? A deep, young team full of guys who have few if any major holes in their games seems to be the blueprint. Obviously it helps to have an MVP caliber talent, but it’s less clear that this is the necessity it used to be, even as this year’s Most Valuable Player also wound up hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy.

More than anything, this was the latest year that proved you better be great at either offense or defense if you want to win it all. The Thunder were far from a great offense, putting up a relatively modest 114.3 offensive rating in the postseason (compared to 116.8 for Boston last season and 118.2 for Denver the year before), but they were a historically dominant defense. It was enough to overcome some middling playoff efficiency that was barely higher than that of the Knicks.

New York pretty clearly isn’t going to get to that level of defensive aptitude given how their roster is built, so this summer has to be about making sure their offense next season can reach levels that even the Thunder will have trouble stopping.

A high mountain to scale? You betcha. But as these Finals just showed, the bar isn’t going to be lowered anytime soon.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

1. Jaylen Brown was taken with a pick acquired from the Nets in the KG trade.

2. The exception to this rule, as we found out yesterday, comes when said star is about to turn 37 and is expecting a two-year, $122 million extension in a few weeks.