Long before I was a family man and working professional, I was a (slightly) winning regular Texas Hold ‘em poker player at various casinos and online. The pace of knowledge and skill in poker over the past 15+ years have far exceeded my capacity to study, so when I do get a fun chance to play, I will now punt stacks of chips if my opponents are high-quality. I know pretty solid strategy, and even pull off some complex actions that printed me money in 2010, but I can’t pull up from deep with a triple-barrel bluff with ~200 compounding factors that my opponents have now memorized.
In other words, I am a Greg Ostertag defending Jaren Jackson Jr. on the perimeter. I am now Olden Polynice trying to guard Lauri Markkanen.
But I still love the game, and I definitely love extending tortured analogies, so let’s mash together poker and the NBA!
For Texas Hold ‘em specifically, each player gets two hole cards dealt to them. Then, five community cards, or the "board," are revealed, first with the the three-card "flop," then the "turn" of the fourth card, and finally the "river." Players then make five-card poker hands, but their starting position as determined by their two original cards sets the tone for the entire hand. I will not bore you with every detail of the game[fn]Though I will make several unexplained poker references throughout, as this is a stupid blog for a very specific cross-section of sickos.[/fn], but those hole cards are essential to understanding how good you have it, and how good you might have it if the hand goes your way, and how good you WILL have it if you play the game right.
As we sit in preseason, those community cards haven’t hit yet. Teams just have their hole cards. But we can predict and rank a LOT about these teams before the chips even begin to fly. This is not a power ranking, but we loosely will go from good hands to bad hands. Here are the cards every team is starting with:
- San Antonio Spurs: K♣K♠
Nobody in this year's NBA is starting with the best hand in poker, pocket aces. But the Spurs have the next best thing, with black kings to go along with their black-and-silver color scheme. The Spurs enter every matchup as a heavy favorite as the best made hand (top pair) among their competitors.
But this team isn’t flawless. Shooting issues, depth, and Victor Wembanyama’s availability makes them vulnerable to any live ace, or flush/straight runouts. You’ll still pick them to win any series, but after getting summarily dismantled by the Knicks, you aren’t surprised when they can’t close it out.
- Oklahoma City Thunder: A♦K♦
Can’t fold a suited Big Slick against any matchup. They’re frequently dominated by pocket kings (e.g., Chet Holmgren vs. Wembanyama), but many different board runouts (e.g., a full strength Jalen Williams) have them back in the fight. Very few non-Spurs teams can compete with ace-king, but the Thunder also lost some depth and relative strength (Isaiah Joe, Luguentz Dort, Aaron Wiggins) so that they’re not starting the hand with a premium starting pair like aces, or even queens, themselves.
- New York Knicks: K♥Q♥
Another top-end suited connector that will embolden the team to play with relative aggression. One of the best parts about poker is that you don’t always have to have the best hand—you just have to convince your opponent that you have them beat. It’d be hard for the Knicks to get the Thunder off of a suited ace-king unless the board hit a ton of hearts (in which case the Knicks are going to win anyways), but if the Knicks draw the Spurs again...don’t you think the Knicks could make the Spurs’ pocket Kings feel vulnerable, regardless of what hits the board?
- Philadelphia 76ers: J♦J♠
Okay, yes, I understand that JJ is a better hand to start with than KQ suited. These rankings aren’t just the literal best hand versus one other hand above or below it, but rather an imaginary entire table full of other opponents.
Jacks need a very specific runout to feel safe against big bets by strong opponents. Too many people think pocket jacks are cursed because they treat the hand like a premium made hand instead of the strong-ish medium pair that it actually is. Same with the Sixers – if they apply appropriate caution and balance to their approach this season, they can confidently end up in the Finals. But if you treat the name brands by only their highest reputations, you’ll have a broken and flawed team losing in the first round.
To feel like they can confidently take down the pot, they basically need to be competing against zero aces (if LeBron James is injured), kings (if Joel Embiid is injured), or possibly even queens (if it turns out the team just doesn’t make a ton of f’n sense). That said, if their hand holds and only a single ace or king show up, a talented player can take one of the most cursed hands in poker to the river and make their opponent sweat.
- Boston Celtics: A♦J♥
A highly-playable ace, because it’s joined by a viable jack that will just crush most other hands night after night, hand after hand.
But the issue with ace-jack offsuit comes when they miss the flop entirely. Skilled players know how to pivot and apply pressure and win the hand anyways against legitimately better hands. Boston has effectively wielded this pressure in the past, but they have also executed stunning failures when they didn’t change up their strengths. This hand used to be a suited ace-queen to open up dominant flush opportunities, but losing Jaylen Brown means they’re just playing with two high cards (Jayson Tatum + a quality roster/coaching).
- Denver Nuggets: A♣9♣
One of my very favorite hands. Without that suited ace (Nikola Jokic), that nine (Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, and the very sketchy depth) would be flapping weakly in the wind. But together? This is still a hand that can whip up some nastiness if they’re allowed to get into the pot cheaply (get into the playoffs without much injury).
The Nuggets played the Spurs and Thunder pretty damn well last year. They obviously got punked by the Timberwolves and deserved their exit because, well, ace-9 suited isn’t foolproof. But the Timberwolves arguably got worse (I’d argue they did) and I still like this combo against all of the other teams in the conference fighting for third place. Spiking an ace on the river gets them past the Spurs, and they’d need a lot more help to beat the Thunder.
We’re writing this team off too quickly because the 9 isn’t a face card and there are way fewer straight combinations. But while they are still quite a bit worse than their heyday, they’re still relevant.
- Detroit Pistons: K♠10♦
The 10 in this hand, Jalen Duren, will play for the Pistons, which makes them willing to limp in certain situations and raise in others. It’s a cool hand with good cards and sneaky straight draw opportunities. They’ll just crush the weaker hands below them that don’t have any business being in the same hand.
King-ten gets to the flop with some confidence and will place lots of valid c-bets to juice the pot up, but once they face a prompt raise, they should really, really think about whether they want that particular story to continue. Plenty of hands ostensibly worse than them will be able to apply tons of pressure and send them to a meek, embarrassing fold. In basketball terms, is locking in to a Cade Cunningham/Duren/Ausar Thompson core actually a good idea against most opponents this year and beyond?
- Lakers: K♦10♥
Identical hand to the Pistons. It’s a cool-looking hand, and it looks even cooler because both cards are red. Like the Pistons, they are powered by a trio of players that all kinda make sense together, but still carry significant flaws that aren’t exactly ameliorated by the rest of the roster.
So, once again, a Luka Doncic/Austin Reaves/Walker Kessler combo gets to the flop with some real juice in the hand to make some plays, but there are so many hands that can effectively put them in a jam even if they pair their kings.
Unlike the Pistons, the Lakers have very scarce prospects and draft assets to improve the team from here.
- Cleveland Cavaliers: Q♥10♦
After a few years of the Donovan Mitchell/Evan Mobley/Jarrett Allen combo, and all of it buttressed by a fellow ball-dominant, bad-defense point guard, this hand just doesn’t feel like it has much long-term potential unless they can get to the flop really cheaply and get quite lucky. It looks pretty (they’re both red cards!), but the longer the hand goes on/the playoffs continue, the more likely that better (and worse!) starting hands are ruining their day.
At a time when most smart players would advise them to fold pre-flop, the Cavaliers shipped in a 3-bet with the Mitchell extension.
- Minnesota Timberwolves: K♦9♠
Just a bizarro starting hand that you usually are forced to defend from the small blind/big blind, but with a gamey confidence that can surprise stronger teams/hands with a good runout.
Once again, though, this hand is only kinda pretty to look at and instills a false confidence. Ultimately, it’s too weak of a hand to try and control the action except in very specific situations (LaMelo Ball plays a ton of games and their depth isn’t tested too much). But maybe that earned confidence turns into disastrous cockiness REAL quick.
- Toronto Raptors: 10♥J♠
This hand needs to "fold pre" a LOT more than it does to keep its chips and try for better opportunities later (read: it’ll lose in the first round of the playoffs a lot). But then they still ship their chips in 2025 to give Jakob Poeltl the worst extension in the NBA and yet again in 2026 to cough up two first round picks and a first round pick swap (and second round picks... and Brandon Ingram... etc.) for the eternal injury mystery of Kawhi Leonard.
They could be fun and whimsical in the right matchup. But what exactly is the point of betting a lot of money on this hand? Connected cards create whimsical thoughts in the hearts and minds of many, but then Leonard is hurt for the playoffs (again) and Scottie Barnes’ shooting hits a wall (again).
- Pacers: 9♠9♣
We love a medium pocket pair around here. The Pacers will call almost all raises by competitors, in or out of position. While a LOT of flops will send them immediately folding (any flop with two or three over cards should send them meekly backing away), there are still so many table card combinations that leave Indiana feeling very powerful and competitive.
And if a 9 spikes on the turn or river? Tyrese Halliburton is back in the Finals.
- Miami Heat: A♣6♦
Sure, why not? What could go wrong by going all-in with an Ace? Who cares what the other card is. It’s an Ace!
A very specific club-only board will help this hand smash the competition out of nowhere. There is certainly upside. But people overplay orphaned aces all the time, just punting stacks of chips to wait and hope for that magic ace to lead them to glory. At the end of the day, once you peel the onion past Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo, this is a frightening hand without many outs against tougher competition. Yet another "fold pre" situation, but Pat Riley is far too proud.
- Houston Rockets: A♥5♦
Red cards for the Rockets! The 5 is lower than the Heat’s 6, but it does open up additional wheel straight opportunities for a deeper playoff run. Pairing the actual 5 on the flop (getting Fred Van Vleet back) is unlikely to actually be helpful if other teams are able to pair their face cards.
The defense will win a playoff round against the right opponent. But if they run into a better overall team (a better ace), it won’t matter.
- Atlanta Hawks: Q♦9♠
It’s fine but also weird and ugly to look at. Intrigues nobody. Might even win a hand/a playoff round, but not resoundingly so/for a lot of chips, so we don’t really care.
- Orlando Magic: 7♠8♠
See the Pistons and their King-Jack offsuit. The Magic got the most out of their suited connectors and had an open-ended straight draw and a flush draw after the turn. All they needed was one of the many, many cards left in the deck to complete the hand and send the Pistons packing, despite Detroit starting with a superior hand. They couldn’t finish the job.
Will a new coach result in a better board runout? Or is this still just two mid-pack cards that look fancy and cute because they are connected and suited? All you can do is deal the hand and see what happens at this point, before rethinking the entire strategy on why they’re in the hand to begin with (paying eight billion dollars to zero top-tier players).
- Utah Jazz: 4♥4♠
Low pocket pairs are just so incredibly fun to play, especially if you get it in cheap (and even when you don’t). Your hand just needs a specific alchemy (Ace Bailey takes a leap; the Lauri Markkanen/Jaren Jackson Jr. frontcourt is unguardable; Jusuf Nurkic + Jaxson Hayes provide enough credible center minutes during the meat of games to keep JJJ out of foul trouble) to really surprise teams that started the season better than you.
In poker, that means a measly 4 showing up on the flop to give you the set, or a flop of uninspiring cards that you know didn’t help your opponents. To your opponents, a 4 is not worth paying attention to. To you, it’s the ticket to a huge win that nobody saw coming. Let’s have some fun with this, shall we?
- Portland Trail Blazers: Q♠3♣
Two cards that could be interesting if given the right partner, but together is a gross and stupid hand that doesn’t make any sense.
From the small blind, the entire table will fold to him and he’ll still be too cheap to play the extra penny to play with the big blind.
- Charlotte Hornets: 9♦10♣
Looks prettier than Atlanta’s Q9 offsuit; is a way uglier hand. But looking pretty can suddenly find yourself in some interesting table situations, and a really skilled coach can make a lot of chicken salad with this group. I think Charles Lee will have a blast coaching a group without wondering about the dispositions of LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges. He has a higher bankroll now and is going to play a lot more hands more aggressively, which can very frequently be a winning combination against tepid opponents.
- Phoenix Suns: 10♥8♣
The first truly disgusting hand. Fold pre. Why are you still in this hand? Why are you paying the luxury tax for this team? Why did you give Devin Booker that extension? Why did you pay an unprotected first round pick for Miles Bridges? Go home, you’re drunk. It’s just an offsuit 10.
- Washington Wizards: J♥5♦
A worse version of the Blazers. There are situations where Trae Young and/or Anthony Davis and/or a young, fiery group of AJ Dybantsa/KyShawn George/Alex Sarr/Tre Johnson/Will Riley would be an interesting hand, but not together and I certainly don’t trust Brian Keefe to do anything skilled or aggressive.
- Dallas Mavericks: 2♠2♣
It is so fun to squint down and see pocket ducks. Quack quack! I have already established that I have too much affinity for low pocket pairs, and this is no exception. The Cooper Flagg leap is staring us right in the face, and Kyrie Irving’s extended absence could only have helped him. I don’t mind the construct of throwing a bunch of large forwards at any given NBA problem.
There’s not enough skill on the team/the pair isn’t high enough actually be useful, but spiking a deuce on the turn puts a lot of opponents in total jail. Play this hand very aggressively or not at all.
- Golden State Warriors: 3♦10♦
I mean, sure, if you get a flop of all diamonds and suddenly you’re in business. But why are you in the hand at all? Stop it. Get some help.
- New Orleans Pelicans: 10♠4♦
Disgusting hand. Go away.
- Grizzlies: 2♥5♥
Legitimately my favorite hand of all time—ask anyone who knows me. A long time ago, I flopped a straight flush with this insane couple of cards. There is no high-end juice to be had here — I can’t count an unreliable Zach Edey or rookie Cam Boozer quite yet — but there is so much obvious alchemy on the table here with skilled players who all fit together.
So opponents will come into Memphis and see weakness. Memphis doesn’t see it that way, and will take every opportunity to catch your unpaired ace sleeping and falling for value bets all night.
- LA Clippers: 10♥2♣
Poker legend Doyle Brunson’s favorite hand, but that’s only because he managed to win stellar pots with them from a crazy amount of skill. Can we say that about Ty Lue and being forced to coach this uninspiring, tainted organization? No.
- Chicago Bulls: 4♦5♥
Cute. Don’t let them in the hand cheaply.
- Bucks: 2♣3♣
Cuter. REALLY make sure you’re not in a hand against the Bucks unless they really paid to be in the pot. Too much good stuff here to take unseriously.
- Nets: 2♠6♥
No! This is probably the hole card pairing that makes me the most viscerally angry to see. I have no desire to watch Julius Randle on a bad team. I don’t immediately think they need to trade Michael Porter Jr. (shades of why I was adamant Utah shouldn’t just take the best offer available for Markkanen), but there also isn’t anything tangible from the youth that inspires me to want him to be around for The Next Great Nets Team. Too much Nets talk! Fold pre!
- Kings: 2♥7♣
Someday they’ll get hole cards befitting of their team name. That is a long, long ways away.
