The start of the NBA Season is officially under one week away and I could not be more excited for this season to start. The first month of the season is always so exciting and intriguing because nothing is set in stone yet, bad teams still have hopes of being good, and it officially is the start of every major sport in the world being on during the same 4 week stretch (MLB, NFL, NBA, MLS, NHL, Champions League, etc..). The start of the NBA Season is when I feel like October officially starts and kicks off the best 3 months of the year! For those of you who are curious,
my Mt Rushmore or Months are as follows:
December, November, October, and May.
Around this time of year, I am absorbing as much NBA content as I can. From watching preseason games to reading depth charts and team preview articles, if it is NBA related I am watching it so that I can be as informed as possible about the season (if only I did that about as something as important as voting). This year promises to be another exciting one if the offseason and the end of last year is any indication! Here are some of the things to look forward to this year (in no particular order): LeBron is on a new team, the Celtics are healthy, the Thunder no longer have Carmelo (and the Rockets do), the Bucks have a new coach, the Suns just fired their GM, Markelle Fultz is shooting jumpers again, the Cavaliers are back down to Earth, the Hawks have a reckless limitless range backcourt, the Raptors and Spurs swapped star players, the Timberwolves may or may not be trying to trade Jimmy Butler depending on who you ask, the Warriors are even better, and Luka Doncic may be the savior of Dallas.
There are obviously even more storylines depending on who you root for, but the fact that just these ones that I listed off the top of my head are exciting NBA stories mean that we have an exciting season ahead of us. Many critics will say that, since we know the outcome of the NBA finals already, it's not worth watching. However, if we think about the journey we have to go through to get there, then the ride to get there is even more exciting. For example, last year, the NBA received the same criticism, but it is important to note that both the Cavaliers and the Warriors were pushed to 7 games in the Conference Finals and if not for the Rockets missing 26 straight threes then the Warriors may have lost that game. If not for Game 7 heroics by Lebron against Boston, perhaps they would not have made the Finals either.
Now let us reflect on the Finals. If not for JR Smith running out the clock at the end of Game 1, perhaps the Cavaliers win that game. If Kevin Durant doesn’t make a 32 foot 3 pointer to win Game 3, then perhaps the Cavaliers win that game too and all of the sudden we have a 2-2 series going back to Golden State for Game 5. So while you can argue that the outcome was what we expected, the journey was anything but that. This year promises to build on that.
For the first time ever, LeBron James is out of the Eastern Conference which means it is wide open for whoever wants it. Boston and Philadelphia are poised to contend for the Eastern title, but Toronto and Kawhi Leonard may have something to say about that. In addition, with a new coach (Mike Budenholzer) in Milwaukee, Giannis Antetokoumpo has been given the keys to the offense and seems poised to be a stronger MVP case than even the one he had last season.
Moving out West, the Rockets added Carmelo Anthony and the Thunder got rid of Carmelo Anthony in the hopes that these moves can be enough to help them compete with Golden State. Speaking of them, Golden State added an All-Star at the mid-level exception in DeMarcus Cousins because no one else wanted to take a risk on him. The Lakers added the best player in the league this offseason and their young core has taken massive strides to improve this offseason. They also have an (interesting?) mix of veteran and young talent that no one really seems to know how it will all fit together…so that will be fun to watch! The best part is that these teams (besides Golden State) are not even guaranteed to make it out of the first round because seemingly every team (except for Sacramento and Phoenix) got better this offseason which means that 13 teams will be fighting for 8 playoff spots. Who will rise to the top and who will sink to the bottom? This will be a compelling race to watch unfold and probably wont have a conclusion until the final day of the season.
With so much about to happen so soon, you may be wondering: what do I do with all of this information? How is this all going to play out? Well, I have answers to both of your questions...When you get a bunch of information, you just take as many notes as you can and (leading into the second question) churn it out into predictions and guesses based off of everything we know now. This means: no injuries/suspensions, trends based off of last year, and also what I kind of want to happen because that will provide the most entertainment. I am going to let you know who will make the playoffs and who is going to win each NBA award this year. I will be unfolding my predictions for the East today, the West later this week, and finally awards after that since there is so much to get in every facet of the NBA.
Let's start with the East. We know that the two best teams are the Celtics and 76ers. Tristan Thompson is convinced that the East still going through Cleveland, but I have a feeling that will not be true this year. After the top two teams, the East has a second tier of teams that are locks to make the playoffs based off of their rosters and last year, but could be in any order. These teams are the: Bucks, Raptors, Pacers, and Heat. Every one of these teams have the talent and the coaching to be successful and finish above .500 in the Eastern Conference which means that they are guaranteed to make it. I believe this could be a year where we see two below .500 teams get the last two playoff seeds. So, after those first two tiers, who does that leave to compete for the final two spots? We have the Hornets, Bulls, Cavaliers, Pistons, Wizards, and Nets all as teams who could grab those final spots. So let's go through each team real quick to decide if they can make it.
First, I have a bad feeling the Wizards will fully combust this year after they added Dwight Howard (who recently broke his butt). They had so many chemistry issues before, adding a renowned locker room cancer in Howard will hurt them even more. On top of that, they did not do too much to improve their roster over last year. They added Thomas Bryant, who I like, but he is still too young to be a contributor and will be on the end of their bench. They added Austin Rivers who is ball dominant and will just take away touches from Bradley Beal and John Wall. They drafted Troy Brown Jr who is a big body, but not a good shooter and doesn't do anything better than what Kelly Oubre Jr and Otto Porter Jr do already.
The Hornets added Tony Parker and drafted Miles Bridges (who I am very high on) from Michigan State but that didn't fix their shooting problems that they had last year. Their offense just isn't good enough to make the playoffs this year. Perhaps after another year of Malik Monk's development that will change and they will make it, but not this year.
The Pistons have two All-Stars in Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond, but their lack of shooting together on the floor in unison with Blake's defense, leaves them vulnerable on both ends of the floor which means they won't make it either. They will be competitive and have a chance toward the end of the season to make it, I just don't think that they can do it.
The Nets are finally back on track after struggling to make ends meet without any kind of draft pick for the past 4 years. They have taken on bad contracts in order to get young talent/future assets and now have a promising direction to go in. I like their young core of D'Angelo Russell, Joe Harris, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Jarrett Allen. History tells us that a young team with a good core like this makes jumps before we expect them to (Thunder in 2010, 76ers in 2018) and surprise us by making the playoffs before we are ready. This is exactly what I expect of them this year. The Nets are good enough to make the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference and that is exactly what they will do.
The Bulls are a little too young and I just do not know where the defense will come from this year. Bulls fans are optimistic it will come from Chandler Hutchison, their rookie out of Boise State, but that is a lot to ask for from a rookie. They have a lot of offensive options in Lauri Markkanen, Jabari Parker, and Zach LaVine. They also have Bobby Portis who is determined to be 6th Man of the Year this year which means that this will be a fun team to watch with lots of youth. Unlike, the Nets though, I do not see them defending well enough to make the playoffs. Next year though. Not this year.
Cleveland Cavaliers. The defending Eastern Conference Champions and a team that will lose that title this year. After the departure of LeBron James, this is a team looking for an offensive identity and they seem to have done that pretty well already this preseason as they now feature Kevin Love predominantly out of the post. If they want to make the playoffs they need a monster year out of him which means a return to Minnesota Kevin Love. The Timberwolves never made the playoffs with Love, but this is the best team Kevin Love has ever had sans LeBron and Kyrie Irving. I think with the low quality of competition in the East, I see the Cavaliers doing what it takes to make the playoffs this year.
This graphic above is how I expect the East to play out. This Conference may be a tough one to watch each night if you are not watching the top five teams, but someone needs to make the playoffs and I think that it will go down like how I have it above. I covered the lower seeded teams, but not the rest of the East yet. The reason for that is because I feel really confident in the teams I selected to make the playoffs and to not make it. For example, the Magic, Hawks, and Knicks have no chance of making it this year. The Magic, besides Mo Bamba and Jonathan Issac do not really have anything encouraging to about their team this year. This is not necessarily their fault because the Lottery balls just really have not gone their way over the past three years. Nonetheless, they are not a team to watch this year because of both their lack of quality players and the lack of winning that will come as a result. The Hawks have gone all in on shooting and are trying to make a young backcourt that can shoot with anyone (ala Golden State) when they drafted Trae Young and Kevin Huerter in the 2018 Draft. After a bad professional debut in Summer League, Trae Young seems much more comfortable in the pros and looks like he'll have a good rookie season. This is a team with four rookies though and multiple 2nd year players (besides Vince Carter and Kent Bazemore) will go through a lot of bumps and bruises on their way to improving this year. The Knicks are without Kristaps Porzingis all year, but have Kevin Knox who showed some great signs in Summer League. He wasn't nearly as aggressive as I would have liked so far this year in Preseason, but I think that will come as he realizes he is the best player on his team and they need him to score if the Knicks have any chance of competing this year.
Back to the second tier teams I mentioned above (Heat, Pacers, Raptors, Bucks). The Heat and Pacers are both good enough to make it in the playoffs, but I they don't have the superstar necessary to push them above these other teams.
In addition, I believe the Pacers will not be as good as they were last year because they will not be able to catch many teams off guard early in the season like they did last year. I do not anticipate Victor Oladipo having back to back 40 point nights like he did last October mainly because he will not need to handle the ball as much and will be getting used to his ball dominant running mate. Last season his usage rate was 30.1% which was top 10 in the NBA and now he will be playing beside Tyreke Evans whose usage was 28.4%. Someone's usage needs to give somewhere as they will spend part of the season getting used to playing with each other off the ball. I am also curious to see if Myles Turner makes a leap in his 3rd year when we expected him to make a big leap last year. The Pacers also plan to play Sabonis alongside Turner which is interesting because neither are great shooters, but both can score in the post and make plays on offense. These players will attempt to take the playmaking pressure off of Oladipo that was their undoing last year in the playoffs since the Cavalier's strategy to stop the Pacers last year was to blitz Oladipo and take the ball out of his hands. Once they did that last year, the Pacers fell apart on offense. How well Oladipo can improve playing off the ball as teams try to take him out of the offense will determine how successful the Pacers will be.
The Heat could be a different team by the time the season starts if they can somehow land Jimmy Butler by Tuesday (although recent talks seem to have fallen off). Even without him though, this team has a good roster constructed of defenders and shooters that will get you 45 wins in the Eastern Conference every year. Since they are almost a lock to make the playoffs, the thing that I am most interested to watch is how they handle Hassan Whiteside especially at the end of games. Last year in the playoffs, they never had a finishing lineup with him on the floor as they opted for Winslow or Olynyk (even Adebayo sometimes) which was especially intriguing because the 76ers had a true center in Joel Embiid who theoretically is a good matchup for Whiteside. Whiteside is due to make $25,000,000 this year with a player option for $27,000,000 next year, no team would be willing to take it on unless they received a major asset as well. This means that the Heat will be locked up with him all year and next year so they need to make the best out of this relationship. That is why I will be closely watching how they use him throughout this season. If I was the Heat though, I would opt for Adebayo at center.
The Raptors are coming off of a coaching change and a major offseason trade that has created the season's first off-court viral moment. However, their team is anything but that. Built with multiple defenders that can switch and defend both up and down the court makes them an incredibly versatile team on the defensive side of the ball. I expect them to platoon swap their starters and bench like they did last year for most of the year, but if they want to effectively utilize their whole roster then they should end the game with a mix of both at the end of the 4th quarter. A lineup of Kyle Lowry, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Serge Ibaka, and Pascal Siakam provides incredible length and perfect switch ability. I hope they use this lineup all the time during the regular season because it will be wildly entertaining to watch offenses try to score on them. Obviously the elephant in the room for the Raptors is whether they can keep Kawhi Leonard through this season. He seems to be playing nice during the preseason, but the questions will only grow as the season continues and pressure on the Raptors to win will increase with each day that passes.
New coach and hopefully new offense for the Milwaukee Bucks this season. Coach Budenholzer is looking to bring the offense he used in Atlanta to Milwaukee and fully unlock what has been deemed "Point Giannis". This has been the fascination of hard core fans everywhere as we have had the desire to see what happens when Giannis is given the keys to the offense and is allowed to run it like he's LeBron. Giving a freak athlete like Giannis total control of the offense seems like such an obvious strategy, yet no coach has successfully done it yet this year. I think coaches have been trying to protect him in the past, but this is the year the Bucks need to let him take over if they want to get out of round 1. As simple as this analysis sounds, this team will come and go with Giannis. In terms of additions that can help them, Christian Wood had a good Summer League and is expected to be another big man contributor although he will not get a ton of minutes off the bat. Until he is ready, Brook Lopez will be a more than suitable starting center who can space the floor for Milwaukee.
Finally, the top two dogs in the East: the Celtics and 76ers! I have a feeling that the Celtics will be a historically great team this year in terms of wins. This team could get close to 67 or 68 wins when it is all said and done this year. Their home court advantage is going to help them cruise to at least 32 wins there and they will be well above .700 on the road because of how much depth they have. They have the best coach who calls the best plays and they have one of the best starting lineups in the league (Irving, Horford, Hayward, Tatum, and Jaylen Brown/Marcus Smart). Their second team also has the experience of last postseason as they almost knocked off Lebron without the their two best players. Terry Rozier will certainly be a 6th Man of the Year candidate and Marcus Smart can play positions 1 thru 4 off the bench because of how strong he is. Add in rookie Robert Williams and this team is deeper than just about any other roster this year. They are far and away the deepest roster in the East.
The 76ers broke up their historically efficient lineup from last year and moved JJ Redick to the bench in favor of starting Markelle Fultz. While JJ is clearly the better player at this point, I respect the 76ers understanding that their best chance to succeed is with Markelle Fultz finally living up to his talent and playing like a number one overall draft pick. I think this team will be a little worse record wise than last year because it will be a tough start with Fultz playing major minutes after not playing many last year. Joel Embiid will be better this year (I hope he can put together two healthy season in a row) and Ben Simmons will maybe shoot threes this year? This will make them a natural rival to the Celtics during the season and I expect the Eastern Conference Finals to have both of these teams in it.
So to recap, I expect the Celtics, 76ers, Bucks, Raptors, Pacers, Heat, Cavaliers, and Bulls in that order to all the make the Eastern Conference playoffs. History has shown us that teams who make the playoffs one year are almost locks to make it again the next.
There is usually one new team in the playoffs each year because one team is expected to drop off. In this chart above, the Pistons in 2017 dropped out and the Bulls took their place; the Hawks dropped out in 2018 and the Heat took their place. This year, I anticipate the Wizards will drop out and the Nets will take their place.
The East is wide open this year, and until a team shows that it can rise to the top and dominate like LeBron did for 10 years then the East is up for grabs by any team as far as we know. There are obviously top tier teams that will rise to the top, but unexpected changes happen all the time and the NBA is a league that can surprise us. Maybe we will get something like that this year. This season is going to be a fun ride.