By Josh Scott 
What’s up everybody? I’m back for v.2 of Commish’s Corner. Things are heating up, we are at about the 20-game mark of the season give or take a few games for each team. How is everyone feeling? I think the trade talks are about to heat up and teams are looking to bulk up down the stretch of the season and into the Playoffs. It looks to be a sellers market with 10 teams currently riding a .300 winning percentage or less. Playoff teams should have their fair share of options if looking to upgrade at any position. With that being said, I am moving the trade deadline back 11 days as we started our season 11 days after the NBA season. The new date is – Monday, Feb. 17th, 2025: DTNBA Trade Deadline (3 p.m. ET)
A couple more observations/spicy takes a month and a half into the season:
– My current TOP 10 Power Ranking: Miami Heat (20-4), Philadelphia 76ers (20-3), Oklahoma City Thunder (17-5), Milwaukee Bucks (18-5), Memphis Grizzlies (17-5), Sacramento Kings (17-5), New Orleans Pelicans (13-5), Golden State Warriors (13-4), Toronto Raptors (13-4), New York Knicks (15-8)
– Biggest surprises: The recent Utah/Miami trade & the fact that there has only been 2 trades since the season has started
– No surprise: Teams in my TOP 10 being where they are
– Miami looks legit starting the season 20-4 with only loses to Top-6 teams – Philadelphia, Sacramento, New York, New Orleans. Not to mention they just made a pretty good trade a couple days ago
– Oklahoma City is rolling with a 17-5 start with only loses to Suns, Wolves, Kings, Heat, and Lakers. Good for the Top spot in the West, currently a three way tie with Memphis and Sacramento
– Philadelphia has cruised to a 20-3 start despite not having Kawhi at all and Embiid sparingly. Poor Joel, his sinuses are still weak and fragile from all of the crying that RL Raptors made him do
– Led by Nikola Jokic, Sacramento is off to a blazing 17-5 start. Not a bad welcome to the DTNBA for Jimmy’s first season
– Bucks stay clear in the Top-3 in the East despite the Heat ending their 11-game win streak and most recently a loss vs the Kings
– New Orleans is on an 11-game win streak and have been putting up some big scoring games of late – 137, 153, 148
– Golden State looks like a contender in the West starting the season 13-4 but the Thunder have had their number thus far handing the Warriors 3 of their 4 loses on the season. No one else has been able to solve them outside of the Blazers in a tight game after they got healthy from a bad streak of injuries
– Charlotte on a 8-game skid and 2 of those games the team only had a combined score of 49 and 64. It’s key to note that they were without LaMelo, Edey, or Clingan
– Dallas won their 2nd game in 17 contests, first against the Hornets and the most recent against the sliding Clippers
– Boston stopped a 13-game skid with a tight win against the injured and skidding Magic
– Cleveland has played the least amount of games of any team and they are still quite a mystery. 4-11 in their first 15 games with their only real notable win against Denver
– Orlando is derailing quickly, Paolo and now Franz both with the same injury smells like big trouble
– Utah is struggling bad. 6-14 to start the season and just pulled the trigger on a trade (that might fire up some motivation for other trades league wide) to get the rights to their own 1st Round pick in 2025 back. But at what expense? Expect more trades from Utah all the way up until the deadline
– Indiana struggling to a 5-12 start. The Chet injury has not helped their case to get back to a top 4 finish in the East like last season
That’s all for now!
Regards,
JBS
Knicks GM