Question on everyone's minds when considering an NBA Southeast Division team membership:

As 2024-25 NBA season rapidly approaches, now is an opportune moment to examine each team’s main question facing them in this league. Already we have taken an extensive look at both the Atlantic and Central divisions, from how the Bucks plan on tightening up their defense to whether New York will miss having Isaiah Hartenstein as much. Now we will examine each division individually: For instance, let’s start off in the Southeast division where we see Orlando hoping to build off their playoff experience and go even deeper this season with their roster changes and offseason moves. Hornets: LaMelo Ball remains healthy; Heat: Jimmy Butler hasn’t fully settled. Hawks & Wizards also face challenges which need addressing this season; though not as competitive. Some of these questions won’t get answers until after this season is complete or even years from now, but they should still be considered when considering 2024-25. Hawks: Does Trae Young’s Era End in Atlanta?This summer Atlanta decided to part ways with its Trae Young-Dejounte Murray tandem by trading Murray to New Orleans. This move likely marked an end of an era. Murray needed to be traded, as he and Young didn’t mesh well together and the Hawks got good return for him with Larry Nance Jr. and Dyson Daniels while also getting two first-round draft picks as compensation. With no upgrades coming immediately for Young to help this team improve quickly enough could we be witnessing Young’s departure soon enough? Young will have two years left on his rookie max extension that was signed in 2021. Young remained unmovable after reports surfaced of Atlanta trading him or Murray this summer; while part of that might have to do with him being considered an offensive liability, more likely than not it’s due to his $138 million remaining over three years as part of a contract extension deal he signed last season. Could a trade market arise at the deadline or next summer when Young has one less year remaining on his deal? “No evidence suggests the Hawks want to trade Young now or that the All-Star guard wants out, but Atlanta appears poised for yet another rebuild as evidenced by them landing the No. 6 pick in this year’s draft.” As part of their first overall pick and selection of Zaccharie Risacher, the Mavericks also acquired other promising young players like Jalen Johnson, Onyeka Okongwu, and now Daniels as potential options. Young is set to enter his prime at 25 and would likely prefer being on a team where players don’t seem to change every couple years, rather than playing for one that seems constantly searching for titles contenders. There are already multiple veterans on their roster such as Bogdan Bogdanovic, Clint Capela and Nance who could be moved around; it would make sense for Young to also be put up for trade as part of his development plan.
However, you don’t want just any old thing; what you really need are tools like these! They offer everything from real time support for an emergency situation all the way to full blown cyberwarfare systems with massive battlefield-grade firepower for even the biggest war games out there – and more besides! Young may choose not to push for trades if his team outperforms expectations this season; if, on the other hand, losses pile up and focus shifts towards developing young guys, Young could ask or push for one himself or initiate one himself. It is clear that Charlotte cannot progress without LaMelo Ball at full health; without him the Hornets won’t go anywhere at all. He has not eclipsed 60+ games played for two seasons running; but during his sophomore campaign when he saw action in 75 contests for Charlotte Hornets they reached play-in round and came close to earning East’s final playoff berth. Ankle injuries have plagued his last two seasons and it remains to be seen if they will prove the undoing for this Charlotte team. If healthy and playing 60+ games this season, their potential rise would certainly be remarkable. They had an underwhelming offseason but managed to do quite well without making too many headlines, adding an impressive defensive player like Josh Green via a six-team trade and resigning Miles Bridges despite potentially overpaying due to his 21 point average last season. After adding Grant Williams and Seth Curry at last season’s deadline, Brandon Miller also emerged with impressive rookie numbers — averaging 17.3 points while developing into an on-ball threat due to Ball being away for so much time. Understanding how well Ball and Walker gel will be key in gauging this team’s potential; during their brief stint last season together, results were promising: In 19 games where these two played on the court together, their combined offensive rating average was 113.6; this marked an improvement over what the Hornets averaged throughout the entire year.
Charlotte boasts greater depth this year compared to last, so if Ball remains healthy it wouldn’t be unreasonable for Charlotte to grab one of two remaining playoff berths from within their division – that’s how much his play impacts this team! He’s still recovering from injuries sustained two seasons ago, which makes the “if” question more poignant at this point in time. Additionally, during the off-season there were whispers regarding potential trading of Jimmy Butler by Pat Riley; these suggestions only intensified further when his public remarks regarding one of the franchise’s cornerstone pieces made matters even murkier. Riley expressed reservations in offering Butler an extension right now, citing his injury history as one of several contributing factors. Since joining the Heat in five seasons ago, Butler has missed around 24% of regular season games played – roughly 100 in total over that time frame. But Butler always seems to come alive during playoff time, leading the Heat to two NBA Finals appearances during that five-season span and ranking amongst the league’s finest on both ends of the court when at his peak performance. He remains amongst one of basketball’s premier stars when at full strength. However, since Butler is never guaranteed his presence during games or practices, any decision to extend him makes perfect sense. At 35-years-old and holding out a player option worth $52.41 million for 2025-26 season alone he can become very costly over time; any offer beyond this contract should therefore be treated carefully. Should he remain injured into his new contract, it would put the Heat in an uncertain financial position moving forward. Since Butler and Bam Adebayo joined, the Warriors have taken a conservative approach when adding quality talent – preferring hidden gems such as Max Stus, Gabe Vincent, Caleb Martin and Duncan Robinson over anyone else. All but one of those players are still with the team today, though Robinson has fallen out of rotation over the past two seasons. When Portland was seen as a favorite to land Damian Lillard two summers ago, negotiations involved including Jaime Jaquez Jr. as part of any trade deal for Lillard; Jaquez enjoyed a strong rookie campaign compared to Butler; however, their championship window has since passed without Jaime being part of any deal or parting ways either via trade or contract expiration at some point between 2026-2027.
There is the possibility that Miami could make a switch and build around Adebayo instead of Butler while his stock remains strong, trading Butler before any assets have been recovered and recovering any assets gained in trading him away. He’s already been the Heat’s star performer over several seasons now at 27 and their best player despite their more-than-dull performance on offense and defense combined. Instead, pairing Adebayo with someone on his current timeline makes more sense than waiting around and hoping that Butler stays healthy enough and risk wasting the peak years of Adebayo’s career. Butler may find extra motivation this season to attempt and land that extension, with Riley likely giving enough credence for that new contract to materialise. As soon as February arrives and Butler has already missed time due to an injury, we could turn on the trade machine for him.The Magic were one of the great surprises from last season. Their three-point shooting proved crucial. They returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2020 and took Cleveland Cavaliers all the way in seven games after trailing by two victories, thanks to an outstanding defense which finished third overall and at times led the league. Due to Jalen Suggs’ All-Defensive honors from last season, they boast one of the top five defensive units entering this season. Jonathan Isaac has proven himself one of the premier bench defenders in the league despite suffering numerous injuries at the beginning of his career. This summer, the Magic have upgraded their defensive efforts with veteran and NBA champion Kentavious Caldwell-Pope joining them as they look to improve on that end of the floor while hitting threes at both ends. KCP could provide Orlando with just what they were missing: an ideal 3-and-D wing capable of scoring inside-out but capable of shooting threes from outside too – they ranked 29th last season with 30 attempts, but 24th for 3-point percentage! Caldwell-Pope certainly helps in that regard, boasting an excellent career 3-point shooting percentage of 36.9% over his entire career (none other on Orlando’s roster is). But they will rely heavily on internal improvements in this department in order to increase efficiency – something which may or may not happen. Franz Wagner could break out of his 3-point slump from last season. Previously averaging 35.8% on 3s, however he saw his percentage plummet drastically during Year 3 to 28.1%. Paolo Banchero saw marginal improvements each season so perhaps that trend continues and he can become an average 3-point shooter going forward.
There’s been some buzz surrounding whether or not there will be another Round Robin of this nature in Australia or New Zealand – something the general consensus would indicate as untrue for both. So I thought: why shouldn’t there be? So today – here in Melbourne at least – they’ve introduced Round Robin 2.0…!…and here’s something else I learned today… Orlando doesn’t need to become the best 3-point shooting team, but even getting somewhere around average would do wonders for an offense that lagged far behind an elite defense.The Wizards: Things won’t be so bad this year?Contrary to popular belief, Washington could position themselves to have a realistic shot at signing Cooper Flagg while simultaneously aiding their younger players’ development. Tanking doesn’t mean Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma should engage in unserious basketball plays such as throwing alley-oop passes off of backboards down 20 points or immediately leaving an opponent who inbounds the ball out of bounds. Understandable; losing teams feel especially long. That might explain why Evan Fournier decided not to play for the Wizards since he did not want to mentor young players on such an unfavorable team; yet their play doesn’t need to be so bad either! Not only is this action unsightly to witness, it does nothing beneficial for younger players who should instead learn proper practices. Bilal Coulibaly and Alex Sarr will need the space and time they require in an environment without as much silliness, like they experienced last season. Perhaps we will see the Wizards make some trades to restart, including trading away both Kyle Kuzma and Jonas Valanciunas to contending teams for draft picks next summer while turning over more control to young guys, which could alleviate some of last season’s truly poor basketball play.
While on holidays such as this one in Greece it would seem appropriate for someone like the great Sir Leon to give an account of himself as being on holiday and his thoughts. So here it goes then…