The start of the NBA season is here, so let’s predict one breakout player from each Eastern Conference team ahead of the 2024-25 campaign.

After producing the league’s 2023-24 champion, the Eastern Conference looks to build on that momentum. The competition between the top eight teams will be fierce as last season when only four games separated the second and eighth seeds.

In a society seemingly obsessed with “change,” standing pat occasionally can be a very cool hand. Nothing was broken in Boston, so there was no need to fix anything. It’s a great, two-way roster with plenty of versatility and depth and stars who are getting prime-ier.

I always like to start my NBA previews at the bottom and work my way up. And when it comes to bottoming out, nobody does it better than the lottery teams in the Eastern Conference. Last season, four East squads lost at least 57 games, and overall, the conference had seven of the league’s 11 worst records.

Here is The Republic's top 10 predicted order of finish for 2024-25 in the NBA Western Conference. Many media pundits are predicting a Finals appearance by the young Thunder. They're led by its nucleus of last year's elite scoring MVP runner-up Shai Gilgeous-Alexander,