Your guide to the 2024-25 NBA season: How to watch the Celtics, top storylines, and award favorites

Posted by Admin October 22, 2024 NBA

NBA

The Celtics and Knicks kick off the season tonight at TD Garden.

The Celtics have high hopes for the 2024-25 season after wrapping up in June with an NBA title. Barry Chin/Globe Staff

By Amin Touri, The Boston Globe

October 22, 2024 | 8:13 AM

Four months after the Celtics conquered the NBA to win their record 18th title, a new season will kick off where the last one ended. On Tuesday night, the Celtics and Knicks open the 2024-25 campaign at TD Garden.

Maybe it doesn’t feel like the NBA has been gone for long, with a memorable Olympic basketball tournament and an electric WNBA season providing a hoops fix throughout the summer and early fall. But plenty has changed in that time, with top contenders swinging big trades and free agency shifting the landscape of the league once more.

The Celtics’ victory tour ends when Banner 18 is raised to the rafters. After that, it’s anybody’s game, and there are plenty of challengers to the throne.

Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the NBA season.

How to watch the Celtics in 2024-25

The Celtics will be back on NBC Sports Boston for a majority of their games this season, but the broadcasts will sound a little different with the retirement of longtime play-by-play voice Mike Gorman. Drew Carter takes over, with former Celtic Brian Scalabrine.

As defending champions and one of the league’s biggest brands, Boston will have plenty of appearances on national TV — 26, to be exact, second only to LeBron James and the Lakers, who will play 27 nationally televised games.

Many of the Celtics’ nationally televised games will still be simulcast on NBC Sports Boston, but Tuesday’s opener is a TNT exclusive.

Top story lines for the 2024-25 NBA season

Are the reloaded Knicks the biggest threat to the Celtics in the East?

No team really gave the Celtics any trouble in the Eastern Conference playoffs, with the Heat, Cavaliers, and Pacers combining to take just two games over three best-of-seven sets. In part thanks to key injuries around the conference, Boston avoided matchups with the Bucks, 76ers, and Knicks, who had a little more star power than the teams the Celtics swept aside.

Those teams will be taking aim this season, and it was New York that made the biggest offseason move with a blockbuster trade for All-Star stretch big Karl-Anthony Towns. He’ll add a new dimension of outside shooting in place of the often frustrating Julius Randle, and the combination of Towns, All-NBA guard Jalen Brunson, elite defensive wing Mikal Bridges, and a Knicks roster full of grit and depth could be the Celtics’ biggest worry come playoff time.

But it’s not just New York that Boston will have to worry about. The 76ers added perennial All-Star Paul George to join former MVP Joel Embiid and rising star Tyrese Maxey, and the Bucks’ pairing of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard is as good as it gets. The Celtics are favorites once more, but it won’t be easy.

Who comes out of a loaded Western Conference?

The West was a bloodbath this past spring, with ascending superstar Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves eliminating Kevin Durant and the Suns before knocking off three-time MVP Nikola Jokic and the defending champion Nuggets, just to be eliminated themselves by a transcendent Luka Doncic and the Mavericks.

Dallas got there by upsetting the top-seeded Thunder, who enter 2024-25 as potential favorites to reach the Finals with their combination of young talent, depth, and team synergy. But there’s so much star power out West, the conference looks unpredictable as ever. What could be more fun?

Kyrie Irving (center) and Luka Doncic have their work cut out for them if they want their Mavericks to make a return trip to the NBA Finals. – Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff

Can an underwhelming draft class exceed expectations?

The 2024 NBA Draft came with as little fanfare and hype as the event has seen for a long time, thanks to what was seen as a fairly thin class in terms of top-end talent. But similarly underwhelming draft classes have managed to produce special talent; the much-maligned 2013 class, led by all-time bust Anthony Bennett at the top, can also boast about future Hall of Famers Antetokounmpo and Rudy Gobert.

It’s always worth keeping an eye on the rookies, whether they come with outsized hype or not.

Which teams are poised to make the leap?

There’s always a shakeup to the NBA hierarchy as a team turns talent and potential into wins and postseason contention. The young Thunder did it last year to nab the West’s top seed, the Kings did it the year before to earn their first playoff berth since 2006, and so on.

So who could surprise the league this season? The most exciting prospect is the Spurs, with French phenom Victor Wembanyama entering his second season with a new running mate — Chris Paul — who could elevate one of the most exciting young players in recent memory to another level.

Other teams to keep an eye on: Oklahoma City, which could still have another level to reach after a breakout 2023-24; the Magic, who won 47 games last season with their top three scorers all 22 years old or younger; and the Grizzlies, who simply could not catch a break in 2023-24 but could return to playoff contention with a healthy Ja Morant running the show.

Will the Celtics repeat as champions?

The Celtics haven’t gone back-to-back since Bill Russell was serving as player-coach. The vaunted 2008 team couldn’t do it, and neither could Larry Bird and co. in the 1980s.

Boston is the favorite as the season tips off Tuesday night, but it’ll be a long road to another duck boat parade in June.

Rule changes for the 2024-25 NBA season

While there are no massive changes, the NBA did choose to expand its instant replay procedures, allowing fouls to be called on reviews of out-of-bounds calls.

According to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, who reported the news in September: “Under the new rules, instant replay on an out-of-bounds play can cover whether a foul should’ve been called on the play, with the NBA referring in its announcement to a play when Kyrie Irving fouled Jaden McDaniels but Dallas got the ball. Now, a foul would be called instead.”