New Year's Resolutions

I'll admit that these are less resolutions than just "what I want to see from each team in the new year," but that's not as good a headline. Still, let's go through 'em.

Atlanta Hawks

Pull the plug on the Trae Young experience. I was terribly wrong about the Hawks this season — I said on the podcast with Mo that if they were healthy, they might go to the conference finals, but they're going nowhere, and fast. I'm not sure they can get anything all that significant for Young in a trade, but whether they deal him or simply let him walk this offseason, it's all over here.

Boston Celtics

Don't rush Jayson Tatum back. I really want to see Tatum back on the floor, but more than that I want to see him 125% healthy before he does get back out there. It doesn't benefit anyone, least of all the Celtics, if he comes back before he's ready and doesn't look like himself. If he can come back at all this season, it's a bonus.

Brooklyn Nets

Let Jordi Fernandez continue to cook. Did you know that the Nets — the Nets! — had the best defense in the league during the month of December? I have no idea how Fernandez has done it. But I don't think the Nets should take any of the tools out of his toolbox by going overboard with a tanking plan. (If they can get actual first-round picks for Michael Porter Jr., though, that's something I might be interested in.)

Charlotte Hornets

Move Miles Bridges so that I can enjoy the vibes of the rest of the team.

Chicago Bulls

Find a path to not being in the play-in every single year. At a certain point, you must step off the treadmill of mediocrity. It's not even like the Bulls are getting real playoff revenue out of this silliness, either, because they play two home games at most and are more likely to bow out in the play-in than actually make the dance most years anyway.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Get your asses in gear. Where is the team that we saw last season? Where is the verve? Where is the confidence and assurance that the other team can't stop you from doing what you want? Was it really shaken that much by the series at the Pacers that you can't rediscover it at all? Not even for the regular season? Let's see some signs of life. And beating the Hornets and Pelicans doesn't count.

Edit: Naturally, since I started writing this the other day, the Cavs have beaten the Spurs and the Suns by not-insignificant margins. So, I guess they're getting themselves into gear. Hopefully.

Dallas Mavericks

This one is easy: Everything you do has to be geared around putting Cooper Flagg in the best possible position to succeed. Every move made should be with an eye on being an inner-circle contender throughout his entire prime.

Denver Nuggets

Keep things afloat until Nikola Jokic gets back and avoid dropping into the play-in tournament. I know the Nuggets still lose the non-Jokic minutes pretty consistently, but if they can just go .500 during this stretch that he's out, that would be huge. They have a very road-heavy schedule for the next month, but they also get Brooklyn twice, Washington twice, and Charlotte once in their next 17 games between now and the end of January. If they can manage to win those (easier said than done, obviously), they'll only have to go 3-9 in the other 12 contests in order to get to 31-19 and hopefully maintain their spot in the top six in the West. (They're three games ahead of the seventh-place Suns are the moment.)

Detroit Pistons

Don't rock the boat too much. The Pistons remain in first place in the East. The Knicks have surpassed them in point differential and net rating and are gaining on their record but Detroit seemingly remains the primary threat in the East. If a major deal that truly raises their ceiling is available to the Pistons, they should take it, but they shouldn't make a trade for making a trade's sake just because they're in first place and it seems like things are wide open. It has to be the right kind of move — i.e. one geared toward finding shooting that doesn't compromise their defense.

Golden State Warriors

Trade Jonathan Kuminga. I'm not sure how to actually accomplish this while getting anything remotely valuable back, but I do think it needs to happen.

Houston Rockets

Continue putting more and more on Reed Sheppard's plate. I want to see Sheppard continue to grow as a ball-handler in pick-and-roll situations. I want to see if he can continue putting up enough of a fight defensively to be in closing lineups on a consistent basis. I just want to see as much of Sheppard as possible between now and the playoffs so that the Rockets know exactly what they have and what they can count on him to do.

Indiana Pacers

Nail whatever draft pick you get out of this lost season.

Los Angeles Clippers

Keep Kawhi Leonard hooked up to whatever juvenation machine he is on right now. Have you seen this guy lately? The Clippers have won five straight games and he's averaging 37.8 points, 8.8 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 2.8 steals, and 1.4 blocks a night in those contests. He looks like Peak Kawhi. It's incredible, and it's powered the Clips to their best stretch of the season. This is what they need to continue winning and possibly saving their season.

Los Angeles Lakers

Play some defense so that J.J. Redick's head doesn't fly off its axis. The Lakers are 26th in transition defense, and it's noticeable in every single game that they don't care about getting back. But it's not like their half-court defense is any better: they're also 26th. Redick is going to lose his mind at some point if things don't change for the better. (And it probably won't.)

Memphis Grizzlies

Let the Cam Spencer train continue to roll. How about 15.9 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 7.1 assists per game in December? How about 52.4% from three for an entire month? Spencer is fun and he's just flat out good — not merely good for a guy on his contract. I want to see how far this thing can go.

Miami Heat

Stay weird.

Milwaukee Bucks

Wait until the summer to resolve the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade situation. I know he'll only have a year left on his contract once we get to this summer, but it's just so much easier to make trades work, both financially and because of roster rules, in July than it is in January or February.

Minnesota Timberwolves

Let's figure out a way to stop melting down late in close games, shall we? You wouldn't necessarily know it by the Wolves' 9-7 record in "clutch time" games, but they have shown a penchant for blowing things in the worst and weirdest possible way. Perhaps avoiding that in the future (and avoiding nonsense like whatever happened in the first half against the Hawks on Wednesday) would be advisable.

New Orleans Pelicans

Win enough games that we can no longer make (too much) fun of the trade. Derik Queen is going to be very good. But the Pelicans are still just 8-27, good for the second-worst record in the NBA. At this rate, they will be guaranteed to give up a top-six draft pick. Can they get themselves out of the bottom five records in the NBA? I kind of doubt it, but that's what I'd like to see.

New York Knicks

Keep experimenting with the deep rotation guys. The Knicks know who their main guys will be when they get to the playoffs. But every once in a while, an eighth or ninth or 10th man can swing a quarter or even a game. And the Knicks have a lot of candidates for those roles. Mike Brown is cycling through them of late due to injuries, and he should keep doing that so that those guys have the experience and the confidence necessary to succeed, if called upon.

Oklahoma City Thunder

Go back to back. Nobody's done it since 2017 and 2018. The Thunder are every bit of good enough to win several more rings over the next several years so long as they stay healthy. Now that it seems like 70 wins may not be realistic, the only thing to worry about is the biggest thing, so that might as well be the goal laid out in front of them.

Orlando Magic

Find a way to get into the top 10 offenses. Orlando is back down to 17th in offensive rating, about a point and a half per 100 possessions outside the top 10. This is not where the Magic were supposed to be when they traded for Desmond Bane. I did express some skepticism on the preseason podcast that they'd actually be able to jump into the top 10, but it's disappointing to see the reasons for my skepticism come to fruition.

Philadelphia 76ers

Continue to operate as Tyrese Maxey's team. It's nice to see the flashes of the old Joel Embiid every now and then, but at this point we know that he won't be on the court enough and the flashes might not be frequent enough that it's not reasonable to ever shift the burden of responsibility back to Embiid. Maxey is going to make All-NBA this year so long as he doesn't fall apart physically due to his insane minutes load. There's no going back, here.

Phoenix Suns

Honestly, I think the Suns have already accomplished my goals for them. I had zero expectation of this even being a play-in team this year. They're 6.5 games ahead of the 11th-place Jazz. They're at the very least going to be a play-in team. Can they pass the Wolves or Lakers or maybe the Nuggets if Denver falters with Jokic on the sideline? Maybe! Let's make that a secondary goal.

Portland Trail Blazers

Conversely, this is a team I need to see not fall out of the play-in. The Blazers are only a game ahead of the Jazz and two ahead of the Mavericks and Clippers. Considering they likely came into the season with an "at least make the play-in" goal, they're in a pretty decent spot headed into the new year. But they did get a head start on teams like Dallas and L.A. that had designs on bigger things, and blowing that head start would be disappointing.

Sacramento Kings

Please just don't do anything rash. Don't go out there and give up assets for Trae Young or Zion Williamson or anything like that. Just don't. Realistically it's time to sell off whatever you can and try to rebuild this thing for real, for the zillionth time. It is what it is. Again.

San Antonio Spurs

I don't want to do the boring thing and just say "keep Victor Wembanyama healthy," especially after his knee scare against the Knicks on Wednesday. So instead I'll say that the Spurs should just keep the De'Aaron Fox-Stephon Castle-Dylan Harper trio together for as long as it's financially feasible. That's not really a New Year's resolution, per se, but it's what I want to see happen. They're too good, and it makes too much sense from an on-court perspective.

Toronto Raptors

More Mamu. Always, more Mamu.

Utah Jazz

Lean all the way into whatever is happening with Keyonte George this year. George was wildly inefficient for the first two years of his career. But he's breaking out as a scorer and playmaker at the same time this season, and it's beautiful to watch. He's already so quick, and he's so decisive this season. Throw in making threes (he hit over 43% of them in December) and actually finishing at the rim at a high level and you have the recipe for this breakout year. Let's keep it rolling.

Washington Wizards

Stay in the bottom four of the standings. The Wizards' pick is top eight protected, otherwise it goes to the Knicks. Washington desperately needs some lottery luck to land The Guy, but what it needs even more is to guarantee that it keeps the pick no matter where it lands. And it can't land outside the top eight if the Wiz finish with one of the four worst records in the league.