As training-camp scrimmages give way to preseason play, the onset of live games against actual opponents allows the NBA’s 30 teams to start figuring out what they actually are — and, more importantly, how that reality compares to what they imagined they might be.
For some, the mounting evidence will serve as a cold-cup-of-coffee reminder that even the best-laid plans of the best-paid decision-makers often go astray. For others, though, the results will support summertime optimism that they’ve got what it takes to walk the long road to championship glory. While the NBA hasn’t quite reached commissioner Adam Silver’s brass ring of near-perfect parity, the rise of a new generation of stars and the return of a slew of injured ones has produced plenty of teams that can harbor reasonable hopes of winning the whole friggin’ thing — perhaps more than in any season in recent memory.