Starting 5: Ja takes flight, Castle’s 1st NBA poster

The 2024-25 NBA season tips off in exactly two weeks. Lauri Markkanen can already see it.

THE LINEUP 🏀
What’s inside today’s edition?
Preseason Heats Up: Eight teams opened preseason play on Monday and delivered the highlights
The Next Step: Is superstardom on the horizon for Indy PG Tyrese Haliburton?
GM Survey: Ahead of today’s release, how well did the GMs do last season?
Win Or Go Home: It’s Game 5 of Lynx-Sun with a Finals berth at stake
Hall Of Fame Bound: Meet the Class of 2024 that will be enshrined on Sunday
BUT FIRST … ⏰
More preseason hoops and a win-or-go-home Game 5 in the W …

Six more NBA teams – the Bulls, Cavs, Heat, Pacers, Hawks and Nets – make their preseason debuts during tonight’s five-game slate.
With the Liberty waiting, the Lynx and Sun meet in Minnesota (8 ET, ESPN2) for a decisive Game 5 to decide the final WNBA Finals berth.
1. DIMES, ALLEY-OOPS & POSTERS HIGHLIGHT MONDAY’S PRESEASON SLATE

Grizzlies 121, Mavs 116: Ja Morant suited up for Memphis for the first time in nine months and finished with 13 points, four rebounds and three assists to lead the Grizzlies past the Mavs, who were without Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving and newcomer Klay Thompson. | Stats
Jaden Hardy led all players in points (21) and dimes (8), while Dereck Lively (12 pts on 5-5 FG) and Quentin Grimes (8 pts, 4 reb, 4 ast in his Mavs debut) combined to add 20

Thunder 112, Spurs 107: Jalen Williams (18 pts, 4 reb, 3 ast, 3 3s) needed only 17 1st-half minutes to make his mark in OKC’s win over San Antonio, who played without Victor Wembanyama and Chris Paul. Chet Holmgren added 10 points and two blocks in nine minutes. | Stats
San Antonio’s Julian Champagnie had 22 points with six 3s to lead all scorers, while Ajay Mitchell led OKC with 19 points

Jazz 122, Rockets 113: Lauri Markkanen (17 pts, 4 reb), Jordan Clarkson (14 pts) and Keyonte George (13 pts, 4 ast) combined for 44 points to lead the Jazz past the Rockets. | Stats
Pelicans 106, Magic 104: Zion Williamson went off in the 1st half (16 pts, 8 reb, 3 ast, 2 stl), Dejounte Murray (6 pts, 6 ast) scored his first NOLA bucket and Jordan Hawkins scored a game-high 18 off the bench to lead the Pelicans to the win. | Stats
Sixers 139, New Zealand Breakers 84: In just one quarter of work, Tyrese Maxey scored 15 points (5-7 FG, 4-5 on 3s) to put the Sixers in the driver’s seat of a 55-point win without Joel Embiid or Paul George. | Stats
2. HALIBURTON’S NEXT STEP, RISACHER’S FIRST STEP

When the Pacers and Hawks make their preseason debuts tonight in Atlanta (7:30 ET, NBA TV), Indy point guard Tyrese Haliburton will begin his fifth NBA season, while Atlanta forward Zaccharie Risacher will suit up for the Hawks for the first time beyond Summer League.
Haliburton is the driver behind Indiana’s high-octane offense – which averaged 123.3 points per game last season, the highest mark the NBA had seen in four decades.
And just like an elite driver picking up speed on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Haliburton has upshifted his game since the day he entered the NBA in 2020.
Enters his fifth season on the precipice of superstardom

On the other side tonight will be a Hawks squad that missed the Playoffs for the first time in four years in 2024, but adds a young talent in Risacher to pair with the scoring and playmaking abilities of Trae Young.
Risacher
and how his father – who played professionally in Europe and won silver at the 2000 Olympics for France – influenced his love for the game
3. ANNUAL GM SURVEY RELEASES TODAY

This year marks the 23rd season that NBA.com has conducted the annual GM Survey – when the NBA’s general managers offer predictions and answer questions about the upcoming NBA season.
Before the results of this year’s survey are released, let’s take a look back at last year and see which predictions proved to be true — and a couple that were just off.
Which team will win the 2024 NBA Finals?
Partially Correct: The GMs gave the Celtics and Nuggets each a 33% chance of winning the title and Boston came through, while Denver fell in the West Semifinals.

Who will win the 2023-24 Kia MVP?
Correct: Jokic proved the GMs correct by winning his third MVP in the past four seasons, but they did not have runner-up Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ranked in the top four.
Who will win the 2023-24 Rookie of the Year?
Correct: Wemby received half of the GMs voters but earned 100% of the official first place votes to win the award.

Which player would you want taking a shot with the game on the line?
Correct: Curry was named the second annual Kia Clutch Player of the Year after hitting a league-high 59 clutch buckets.
Which team will be most improved in 2023-24?
Close But … The top two picks by the GMs should have been flip-flopped as Houston made a 19-win improvement compared to a 17-win leap by OKC.
4. WNBA: ONE WIN FROM A FINALS BERTH

The New York Liberty are waiting. The No. 1 seed in the Playoffs earned its second straight trip to the WNBA Finals on Sunday and will watch along with all of us tonight (8 ET, ESPN2) to see who they will match up with for the championship.
No team has a better record over the past eight seasons than the Sun (181-91) – nine games better than the second-ranked Aces (172-100). But the Sun are still in search of that elusive first title
After a back-and-forth series that has seen both teams win on the other team’s home court, it all comes down to a win-or-go-home Game 5 from Target Center in Minneapolis. How did we get here?
The Sun dominated the 2nd half (49-32) to extend the series with big games from Tyasha Harris (20 pts, 4 3s), Thomas (18 pts, 11 ast) and DeWanna Bonner (18 pts, 4 stl)
The prize for winning tonight’s decisive game is a matchup with a Liberty team that finished a league-best 32-8 during the regular season and is 5-1 in the Playoffs.
The Liberty went 3-1 this season against the Sun and 1-2 against the Lynx as Minnesota was the only team to beat NY in their season series.
5. HALL OF FAME CLASS OF 2024 TO BE ENSHRINED THIS WEEKEND

On Sunday in Springfield, Mass., 13 players, coaches and contributors to the game will earn basketball immortality by being enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Leading the Class of 2024 is one of the game’s all-time high-fliers (Vince Carter), one of its most clutch performers (Chauncey Billups) and one of its top lockdown defenders (Michael Cooper).
Doug Collins, Herb Simon, Jerry West
Jerry West – who was inducted into the Hall as a player and a member of the 1960 U.S. Olympic team – will enter for a third time for his contributions as a league executive with the Lakers, Grizzlies and Warriors following his playing career.
He will make history as the first member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame to be inducted as both a player and a contributor.
NBA TV will have wall-to-wall coverage of enshrinement weekend, beginning with Saturday’s press conference (2 ET) and Awards Gala (8 ET) and continuing Sunday with the Red Carpet (5 ET) followed by the Enshrinement Ceremony (6 ET)
Beginning tomorrow, the Starting 5 will celebrate the careers of the Class of 2024. So get ready to see Carter’s most thunderous dunks, Billups’ most clutch shots and much more.