Ok, confession time. I said I wasn’t going to watch much NBA preseason this year. Then it was a random Tuesday, 11pm, and I was watching a guy I’d never heard of brick three straight corner threes. In a game that doesn’t count. For a team I don’t even root for.
So yeah. Here we are again.
I know the arguments against it. Stars play like 18 minutes and sit. Coaches use the fourth quarter to look at camp invites who’ll be cut by the weekend. Final scores are basically random. My buddy says watching preseason is like reading the first page of a book and reviewing the whole thing. He’s not totally wrong.
But he’s not totally right either.
Forget the score, look at who’s playing
The scoreboard is the least useful thing on the screen in October. If your team loses by 20, check who was out there in the fourth. Nine times out of ten it’s guys fighting for the last roster spot, not the starters.
What I watch for is way simpler. Who starts? Who’s on the floor at the end of the first half, when the coach still kind of cares? That’s usually your real rotation, way more than whatever the coach says at media day (they never tell you anything anyway).
Same with the young guys. If a second-year player keeps getting run with the starters, even while shooting terribly, the coach likes something. Pay attention to that kid.
And shot selection. When a team that barely shot threes last year suddenly fires up 40 a night, that’s not luck. That’s a plan.
The injury stuff is the real deal
Honestly this is the part of the NBA preseason I care about most. When a star comes back from a long injury, you can kind of tell in a couple of games if he’s ok. Is he exploding off the floor? Or is he favoring the leg, settling for jumpers, looking a step slow? You won’t get that from a box score.
Don’t be that guy on twitter
Every year somebody shoots 3-for-20 over four games and people call him washed. Every year some undrafted guy scores 25 against third-stringers and suddenly he “has to start.” Both takes are usually dead by Thanksgiving.
If you play fantasy, this is where you get burned. My rule: role changes stick, hot and cold shooting doesn’t. Took me a couple of bad drafts to learn that one.
How I keep up with all of it
October is chaos. Trades, last-second signings, guys getting waived, injury updates every five minutes. I mostly check NBA news and daily basketball puzzles to catch up, and the puzzles are kind of humbling, not gonna lie. You think you know where everyone signed this summer until you have to actually name them.
So does the NBA preseason matter? For the standings, no. Nobody’s hanging a banner for going 5-0 in exhibition games. But if you watch the rotations, the young guys and the injury comebacks, you’ll show up to opening night knowing more than most people. Worth a few late nights. Probably.
