The Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder are among the teams who'd be thrilled if the playoffs started today, but there are several others glad to know that the standings aren't final after the first quarter of the season.

Here, we'll cover the squads that have endured varying levels of adversity through the first few weeks of 2024-25, explain the issues and point to reasons for optimism going forward. Each of these teams' definition of a struggle is relative. We've even got a couple of clubs with winning records, and it should hearten their fans to know that even better days are ahead.

It's a long season, and that's great news for the following teams.

Philadelphia 76ers

The Philadelphia 76ers won't have another stretch as brutal as their 3-14 start, even if that's not the same thing as saying all's finally well now that Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George have shared the floor for an entire game.

All of the concerns about Embiid holding up persist. He told ESPN's Tim Bontemps his knee swelling remains "something that hasn't been figured out." George, 34, is firmly in the decline phase of his career.

Still, better days are clearly ahead. They may have already begun.

Prior to a Dec. 8 win over the Chicago Bulls—during which Embiid scored 31 points and Tyrese Maxey logged his first career triple-double—the trio had spent exactly six minutes on the court together. They played 26 against the Bulls and posted a plus-14 differential in that stretch.

Predicting improvement for the Sixers is partly about acknowledging things simply can't get much worse for them. While Embiid's knee issues and George's poor durability were foreseeable, Maxey's early-season hamstring injury was a surprise. Keep even two of them in the lineup semi-regularly, and Philadelphia will be better off than it was over the first six weeks of the year.

Another factor: The Sixers aren't incentivized to tank. They can't lose enough to earn more than a 14.0 percent chance at the No. 1 pick and will struggle to finish below the likes of Washington, New Orleans, Utah, Portland or Charlotte—even if they try.

Toronto Raptors

The Toronto Raptors won't be flirting with a bottom-10 offense much longer.

Kelly Olynyk (38.7 percent on threes last year) just made his season debut after battling a back injury, and starting point guard Immanuel Quickley (39.5 percent) isn't far off. Once those two rejoin an offense that has gotten spectacular facilitation from RJ Barrett and Scottie Barnes, both of whom rank among the elites at their positions in assist rate, the Raptors' scoring will take off.

On the season, Toronto ranks fifth in the league in potential assists per game, but it's failing to cash in those setups. Everyone on the roster not named Ochai Agbaji is shooting below expectations from deep, and the team as a whole ranks 23rd in three-point accuracy.

If we assume regression to the mean is in store for the Raptors' healthy shooters, and if key players return to the lineup and convert at their career averages, those threes will start to fall.

New York Knicks

It's been a long time since anyone confused Karl-Anthony Towns with an objectively good defender. But he's not this bad.

Once he and the roster around him improves, the New York Knicks will pair a quality defense with an offense that has so far been among the best in the league.

Much has been made of Towns' unfathomably poor rim protection this season. He's allowed opponents to shoot 68.5 percent when designated as the primary defender inside six feet, the worst high-volume rate among bigs in the league. There's no getting around how damaging that's been to New York's bottom line.

We know KAT performs better individually and can be part of a good team defense when paired with a center. The Minnesota Timberwolves posted a 110.6 defensive rating (89th percentile) when Towns was on the floor with Rudy Gobert last year. Mitchell Robinson isn't Gobert, but get him (or whomever the Knicks acquire via trade) out there next to Towns, and things will improve.

Towns held opponents to 63.1 percent shooting inside six feet last year and 58.0 percent the season before.

Lastly, the Knicks have simply been unlucky. Their point differential suggests they should have nearly three more wins than their current total of 15. Even if you assume center help isn't coming, New York's underlying metrics say positive regression is ahead.

Minnesota Timberwolves

Defensively, the Minnesota Timberwolves' surge has already begun. Since Anthony Edwards called his team out publicly, the Wolves have been the best defense in the league and now rank sixth overall in points allowed per 100 possessions. That's a far cry from where they were at their Nov. 27 nadir, sitting at 8-10 and ranked 12th on D.

Now that their stopping power is restored, the Timberwolves will turn their attention to fixing things on the other end.

Julius Randle isn't going to change his ball-stopping ways, and it certainly looks like Donte DiVincenzo is badly miscast in the shot-creating role he's had to play.

But those are fixable issues. Minnesota can shuffle the rotation so Randle comes off the bench and DiVincenzo returns to form as a shooting specialist, or it could trade both of them. Even if the Wolves soldier on with their ill-fitting new acquisitions, signs suggest they're still in for a much better performance.

Mike Conley has missed four games—all losses—and the Wolves scored 105 points or fewer in three of them. When he's been on the floor, Minnesota scores at a top-10 clip.

It won't be long before the Wolves rejoin the contender class.

Denver Nuggets

Now's the time to buy low on the Denver Nuggets.

The defeat at the hapless hands of the Washington Wizards, who'd lost 16 straight games prior to that Dec. 7 tilt, was essentially the Nuggets hitting bottom. There's nowhere to go but up.

Nikola Jokić is playing better than anyone in the league. He hung 56 points on Washington in that embarrassing loss and would still win MVP if the award were handed out today—despite Denver's disappointing 12-10 record. Generational greats like him don't allow teams to unravel.

Aaron Gordon is rounding into form after missing time with a calf injury, and Denver is 9.1 points per 100 possessions better when he's on the floor. Jamal Murray has been a massive disappointment all season but will look much better when he starts hitting more than 30.0 percent of his wide-open threes.

On the other end, Denver's half-court defense is fine, ranking in the top 10 in points allowed per possession. The youth currently occupying more of Denver's minutes than in years past should allow for improved transition defense as well. Young legs can get back quickly; it's just a matter of head coach Michael Malone getting better attention to detail out of his developing players.

This is a scary time, but the Nuggets have played the eighth-toughest schedule in the league, have won more than they've lost and aren't meaningfully different from the team that won 57 games a year ago.

Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Accurate through Dec. 9. Salary info via Spotrac.

Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.