6 BIGGEST Lessons Learned From The NBA's Opening Week

The first week of the 2027 NBA season is in the books, and while there is still a lot of season to look forward to ahead of us, we've also learned quite a bit about how the year might play out. Every team has a handful of games under their belt now, and we're starting to see how they play together, what works, what doesn't, and where there's room for improvement. In some cases, there are major things that have stood out, Today we will be discussing which brings us to today's video. the six biggest lessons we learned from the opening week of the season that we should be mindful of moving forward. Also, since I made a video like this about the league's opening night of games, I'm going to be focusing on the teams I did not touch on in that video. Before we start though, it would be greatly appreciated if you could all utilize YouTube's new hype feature and hype this video up as it actually helps out quite a bit. Now with that being said, let's begin. The first big lesson we learned from the opening week is that the Miami Heat are just as clunky of a fit in reality as they seemed to be on paper. When Giannis Antetokounmpo got traded to Miami this summer, it shook up the NBA world as one of the biggest blockbuster deals we've seen go down in recent history. Stars get traded all the time in the NBA, but the top tier MVP caliber players rarely get traded, so to see an MVP winner on the move obviously brought a lot of high expectations to Miami. The entire reason that Giannis finally wanted out of Milwaukee in the first place was because they were no longer able to realistically contend at the highest level with him, so it was best for both sides to part ways. Miami clearly had talent and a decent foundation for a playoff hopeful, but that doesn't mean they necessarily had a roster most ideal to fit Giannis into. The biggest issue is that the Heat sacrificed a lot of their spacing in the trade that they made for him, and their current lineup has a lot of clashing skill sets. And to start the season, they are winless at 0-4 at the time of me making this video. They have the 4th worst ranked offense in the NBA to open things up, further emphasizing how much of a struggle it has been to get these guys to gel together as a unit. Giannis and Bam Adebayo are a great pairing on defense, but offensively, they just get in each other's ways. They operate in the same spaces, neither one is a very good shooter from the outside, and And they lack the truly high end playmakers around them on this team to maximize They're also relying on a completely washed up Klay Thompson to try to save that poor spacing in the lineup, but it's not 2018 anymore, and Klay Thompson hasn't really provided genuinely positive impact in years. I'm not going to overreact to the point where I expect them to be bad all year long, there's just too much talent for them to struggle to this degree over 82 games, but they just don't look like a title contender that they were expected to be when they traded for Giannis. Speaking of the Miami Heat, we can head over to Kalshi and see that their odds to beat the Indiana Pacers in their upcoming matchup tonight is at 74%. Personally, I like those chances, so I'm going to take them to win, and at that price, a $25 trade pays out $33 if you're right. The Heat may not be playing well overall right now, but they did just get their first win on the board, so they're carrying some momentum. Plus, the Pacers are going to be without Tyrese Tyrese Haliburton tonight, so they're shorthanded for this matchup. The next big lesson learned from opening week is that Nikola Jokic may be starting to regress. Jokic has been one of the greatest individual powerhouses of offense the NBA has ever seen lace him up over the course of this decade, and He's an NBA champion on top of that, but we are starting to see some signs that maintaining that truly unprecedented level of impact is starting to fade a little bit. The Nuggets are one and two to start the year, with their only win being against the winless Pelicans, and their two losses being blowouts against the Thunder and Warriors, and Jokic himself has struggled mightily in both of those losses. They've given up 134 points and 135 points in back-to-back games already, unable to get many stops on defense, and while Jokic has never really been a good defender at any point in his career, things are getting even worse. In the loss to the Warriors specifically, Rookie Jaxson Lenderberg had a big time breakout performance and it came by way of him constantly attacking the paint where Jokic provided very little resistance. Denver currently have the 5th worst defensive rating in the NBA to start the season, and looking at the makeup of this roster, it's tough to buy into them ever being anything more than a mediocre team on that end as things even out over the course of the season. In the past, Jokic's offensive mastery was able to cover up these deficiencies, but asking him to constantly maintain the type of production that he's put up year after year may finally be taking a toll on him because it's a lot to manage. He scored fewer than 20 points in both of their losses, shooting it poorly, and while I'm not here to place all of the blame on him for their slow start, something just doesn't look right with him compared to years past. Of course, Jamal Murray's also gotten off to a cold start, DeMar DeRozan is also a big issue on defense in his minutes, and they don't really get much other bench production so they need Jokic to be at his absolute best to skate by, and if he's not, this group could be in trouble. The next big lesson learned from the opening week is that Jaxson Lenderberg was an absolute steal for the Warriors in the draft. Speaking of Lenderberg, from the last segment, it wasn't just against the Nuggets that he has been cooking. As a prospect, analyzing him and his value was one of the more interesting cases in the draft this year. He was absolutely one of the most NBA-ready players in the class, he had a well-balanced two-way skill set that just helped Michigan win a title in March Madness, he had the ideal size and physical tools that NBA teams look for from wing players in today's league, but his upside was the biggest question mark. I'm not even here to say that those concerns weren't valid, because he is a 24-year-old Way older than most rookies who- But Also, him slipping out of the top 10 may end up looking crazy in hindsight despite all of that. In each of his first four games, he has progressively put up more and more points, going from 12 against the Lakers, to 18 against the Grizzlies, to 26 against the Suns, to a big-time 31-point game against the Denver Nuggets. He's also averaging nine rebounds and five assists per game, he's being assigned to guard the opposing team's best player each night, and he's genuinely holding his own. Now, the Warriors are still just 1-3 to start the season, so unfortunately, the concerns about this group as a whole that were there going into the year are still there now, but at the very least, they have another rock-solid piece to add to their foundation to take into account for whatever they decide their next moves will be. Realistically, do I think he's going to be the star player and savior that some are hyping him up to be based on this explosive start? No, probably not, but he is looking like a player who will be a high-end starting forward in the league for a very long time and he has that edge to drive him. Funnily enough he's making just as many headlines for the things that he says in interviews as he does for his play on the court talking trash to Luka Doncic, ridiculing the culture of foul baiting in the NBA and things like that and while some will see all of his loud mouth things and expect him to hush up because he's just a rookie I actually appreciate that kind of confidence and honesty and I think it speaks It speaks to how he already feels like he belongs at this level. The next big lesson learned from the opening week is that Darius Acuff is not making a good first impression. Staying on topic with the rookies, Darius Acuff is making history for all of the wrong reasons to begin his career as a Sacramento King. Coming into the league, Darius Acuff was one of the more polarizing prospects in the draft as someone with clear and obvious talent and production, but also with some concerning flaws. In March Madness, he filled it up and dominated on the big stage with Arkansas, but the NBA is a whole different beast. On the surface, Acuff's start to his career may even look pretty dang good to the common eye, as he is averaging about 22 points and 5 assists per game, which is really good for a rookie. However, with added context, things become a lot less impressive and, honestly, way more worrying. Darius Acuff is the first player in NBA history to take at least 20 shot attempts in each of his first four games of his career. In other words, he has come in and already is starting to hog the ball. This would be way more acceptable if he was taking good shots and converting his attempts But, that's not the case either. Acuff is shooting just 34% from the field and 20% from three so far on the season, so basically he's just out there shooting the Kings out of games night after night. That's not even where the struggles end, either. The biggest worry about Acuff as a prospect was that his effort on defense was abysmal, and that is very much still the case in the pros. He can't keep anyone in front of him, he falls asleep defending off the ball, and the impact metrics show that the Kings allow about 11 more points per 100 possessions on defense when he's on the court. The next big lesson learned from the first week is that the Portland Trailblazers are not just a fun team, they're a legitimately good team. The Trailblazers had a lot of potential coming into this season, but there were so many questions that needed to be answered before any definitive proclamations were made. Last year they snuck into the playoffs via the play-in tournament and emerged as a group ahead of schedule in their rebuild, and this offseason they made some moves that felt like they had the potential for major payoffs, but they just came with risk. The Trailblazers already had a crowded backcourt with Drew Holiday proving he still had gas left in the tank last year, Scoot Henderson still trying to gradually grow into high-end guard after being one of the top picks in the 2023 NBA Draft, and Damian Lillard was on the roster ready ready to make his return from injury this year after missing all of last year, but then Then they also went out and traded for Ja Morant. Now, the trade itself was fine in a vacuum, they really didn't have to give up that much at all in the deal to make it happen and acquire him, and obviously Ja Morant, at his best, was a bonafide all-star who led some very successful Grizzlies teams. But the fit and timing were questionable. With three other point guards, adding a fourth into the mix was odd, and obviously the reason that Morant was on the move in the first place was because he was struggling quite a bit over the last couple of seasons in Memphis. Would he fit in, or would he make things tougher in Portland Well, so far, it's very clearly the first one, as vibes in Portland seem to be very high in the locker room, the team look like they're having fun playing together, and they are off to a hot 3-0 start with wins over the Suns, Kings, and Lakers. Denny Avdija is still the clear top option in this group, Damian Lillard's back to shooting the ball red hot, John Morant is playing far more efficiently and has accepted a lesser role for the betterment of the team, and the role players around them are all high end defenders to overcome some of the deficiencies in the backcourt on that end. So this is a group not to sleep on. And finally, the last big lesson learned from the opening week is that Walker Kessler is looking like the perfect fit with the Lakers. This trade may not have dominated headlines quite to the same degree as other blockbuster deals that went down this summer, but when the Lakers traded for Walker Kessler, the resounding majority reacted to it as if it was some big-time reach by the Lakers. I consistently felt myself disagreeing with that notion, though. The Lakers have been in in desperate need for a center answer for years, and now with Luka Doncic It was especially the case because Luka is at his best running the two-man game with a big man that excels around the rim. Walker Kessler was never a flashy player during his time with the Utah Jazz, but he was sneakily one of the most impactful bigs in the league who just Flew under the radar because the Jazz, overall, were a bad team that were rarely ever in the limelight. Now that Kessler is in LA, he's absolutely going to start receiving the flowers that he deserves, and he's thriving to start the year. Right now, the Lakers are off to a 3-1 start to the season, and have the second-best ranked offense in the early going. Kessler is scoring a career-high 16 points per game, he's leading the NBA in field goal percentage, making 78% of his shots, because Luka is setting him up on a silver platter, and he dunks pretty much everything once he's around the rim. He ranks 3rd in the NBA in blocks per game, and this next stat I'm going to say is going to sound so crazy you won't even believe it. With Walker Kessler on the court, the Lakers outscore their opponents by about 17 points per 100 possessions. With him on the bench, The Lakers get outscored by about 8 points per 100 possessions. That is a ridiculous 25-point swing because of one player, and that's the kind of impact that Kessler brings. He is an elite interior defender who pairs well with the team's best player, and was exactly what this group needed for a cohesive starting lineup. And with that being said, that's all I have for you today. Make sure to like the video, subscribe to the channel, and comment down below what else What else stood out to you during this opening week of the season? Thanks for watching, and I'll see you all next time.