Eastern Conference:
1.Boston Celtics: The Celtics were 1 game away from the NBA Finals without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward last season. With those 2 All-Stars (presumably) healthy to start the year, LeBron leaving Cleveland for LA and a deep bench that is loaded with players that come in and change the tone of a game on a whim (Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier, Aron Baynes, Marcus Morris), the East is theirs to lose.
2.Philadelphia 76ers: 2017-18 was a valuable learning experience for this young Sixers squad as "The Process" finally yielded some results (a 52-30 season that included a nice playoff series win over a resilient, well-coached Heat squad). With the bulk of their key contributors returning, this year should prove to be even better for Brett Brown's team. Health is obviously a concern with a lot of their young players, but as long as Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons can stay on the court, this team's high-octane offense, solid defense and numerous bench pests gives them the best chance of posing a threat to the Celtics.
3.Toronto Raptors: If he stays healthy and engaged throughout this season, Kawhi Leonard will be a scary addition to a Raptors squad that has wreaked havoc during the regular season for the past half-decade. However, I don't know if Leonard and a new coach (Nick Nurse) that was promoted from within will be enough to break this organization's baffling trend of crumbling in the playoffs.
4.Indiana Pacers: Last year's surprise team in the East is an excellent position to improve in 2018-19. Veteran free agent signings Tyreke Evans and Doug McDermott should help sure up their 2nd unit scoring, Nate McMillan knows how to get these guys to play smart and hard on a nightly basis and if the preseason is any indication, Victor Oladpio's sensational 2017-18 campaign wasn't a fluke. This team should be a serious thorn in the side to every other potential contender in this conference.
5.Miami Heat: While GM Pat Riley has put them in a less-than-ideal position to land a true star or build for the future by handing out bad value contracts to guys like Hassan Whiteside, Dion Waiters and Tyler Johnson, Erik Spolestra should be able to work enough magic to get this sizable band of nice, 2-way role players back to the playoffs.
6.Milwaukee Bucks: It wouldn't stun me if the Bucks suddenly shot into the upon echelon of this conference under the guidance of new coach Mike Budenholzer-who took a similarly talented Hawks team to the Eastern Conference Finals back in 2014-15. However, the guys on this high-ceiling roster outside of Giannis and Khris Middleton have had a hard time consistently playing up to their potential thus far. That inconsistency combined with their continued lack of outside shooting and toughness on the interior (I'd be flabbergasted if new starting center Brook Lopez ended up fixing this issue) should continue to hold them back, regardless of who the coach is.
7.Cleveland Cavaliers: Their run of 4 straight finals appearance may be guaranteed to come to a close, but I honestly think the LeBron-less Cavs are going back to the playoffs this year. The bottom of the East is a god damn mess and the sense of continuity among the returning veteran corps (Kevin Love, Tristian Thompson, J.R Smith, Jordan Clarkson, Kyle Korver, Larry Nance) should help them rise above the rest of the average-to-below average teams fighting for the final 2 playoff spots.
8.Detroit Pistons: Dwane Casey was an excellent coaching hire for this perennially mediocre team and despite his well-documented struggles in the postseason, he has a good shoot of maximizing the production of this intriguing yet oddly-constructed roster that isn't versatile enough to play positionless basketball or physical enough to play old-school, pick-and-roll basketball. I certainly wouldn't bet on them making the playoffs, but I'll take a Casey-coached team with Blake Griffin, Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson in its starting lineup over the rest of the scrap heap.
9.Washington Wizards: The Wizards offseason was honestly hilarious. For some inexplicable reason, the front office decided that what this wildly talented yet internally troubled team needed to improve upon a disappointing 2017-18 season where they barely squeaked into the playoffs was to add Hall of Fame headcases Dwight Howard and Austin Rivers to the fold. Stay tuned for the 1st rough patch of the season where Howard, Rivers, John Wall, Markeef Morris and Kelly Oubre get into an all-out brawl in the locker room.
10.Charlotte Hornets: Dreadful cap management from years past continues to prevent them from being able to bring in some more scorers, but Kemba Walker's proven playmaking ability is enough to place the Hornets slightly ahead of the East's other rebuilding teams.
11.Chicago Bulls: Even with Lauri Markkanen on the shelf until at least mid-to-late November, this Bulls squad looks like its going to be electric on the offensive end. Zach LaVine should be much more explosive around the rim now that he's a year removed from a Achilles tear, 2016 lottery pick Kris Dunn will look to build off a very promising inaugural season as a starting point guard and free agent pickup Jabari Parker has shown flashes of dominance in between the 62,000 major injuries he's suffered over the course of his professional career thus far. Their youth makes them really raw and outside of Bobby Portis, they have no proven, quality defenders ready to suit up on Opening Night, but they're going to score a lot of buckets and do so with ample pizazz.
12.Brooklyn Nets: Optimism continues to slowly build in Brooklyn. They've got some homegrown young pieces that might turn into something special (Jarret Allen, Caris LeVert, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson), their cap flexibility allowed to bring in some more solid veteran role players (Kenneth Faried, Ed Davis, Shabazz Napier) that should help instill some more toughness onto this young roster and D'Angelo Russell might be in-line for a breakout season after turning a lot of heads with his strong performances throughout the offseason program. The likelihood of another slight on-court improvement combined with the fact that they'll finally have their own lottery pick to work with next season will be a nice silver lining as they grind through another 25-30 win season.
13.New York Knicks: I'm interested to see what new coach David Fizdale, who was puzzlingly fired by the Grizzlies early last year, will be able to do with this largely young roster and how effective Kristaps Porzingis can be when he returns from a torn ACL later in the year. Aside from those mildly intriguing storylines, the Knicks are going to be their usually stinky selves and let's not pretend like the higher-ups in the organization are going to be spending most of the year hoping that they'll be able to convince at least 1 star player to sign with them next offseason.
14.Orlando Magic: Shedding the bloated contract of Bismack Biymbo for the slightly less bloated contract of Timofey Mozgov and getting somewhat unpolished yet wildly talented young wing Aaron Gordon to re-sign were huge wins for this rebuilding franchise. That being said, there's still way too many question marks swirling around their young players offensive ability (Jonathan Issac, rookie Mo Bamba) and overall depth to believe this will be the season where they finally start to turn things around.
15.Atlanta Hawks: This season is entirely about gauging the true potential of John Collins, Taurean Prince and Trae Young. These young guns will get an excellent chance to play a ton of minutes alongside a Sacramento Kings-esque supporting cast largely consisting of washed-up veterans (Jeremy Lin, Vince Carter), draft busts (Alex Len, Justin Anderson) and a couple of legimately solid role players that are probably confused why they're still there (Kent Bazemore, Dewayne Dedmon). This exercise won't lead to a ton of wins, but it should prove to the powers that be whether or not this trio of 1st round picks are cornerstone pieces this franchise can build around.
Western Conference:
1.Golden State Warriors: Unless DeMarcus Cousins comes in and ruins all of the chemistry this powerhouse team has built up over the past several years when he returns from his Achilles injury in the latter stages of the season, there's no reason to believe that the Warriors don't have an excellent chance to win their 4th championship in the last 5 seasons.
2.Houston Rockets: Even the abhorrent stench of a washed-up Carmelo Anthony likely won't be enough to screw up the lethal, outside shot-happy scoring machine the Rockets have built since Mike D'Antoni arrived in Houston at the start of the 2016-17 seaso. In fact, the Rockets might actually be better than they were a year ago. James Harden is still an absolute offensive force in the regular season, 33-year old Chris Paul should be able to hit the ground running after undergoing some inevitable growing pains adjusting to this team's shoot-at-will approach in the early stages of last year and newly-acquired forward Marquese Chriss gives them another a much-needed second unit shot-blocking specialist that can patrol the rim when Clint Capela heads to the bench. Still really excited to see exactly when and how Melo kills their season though.
3.Oklahoma City Thunder: Paul George's surprise re-signing, the addition of a starting-caliber veteran point guard Denis Schroder that will bring some much-needed offensive firepower to their second unit and of course, the departure of Carmelo Anthony makes the 2018-19 outlook for the Thunder much rosier than expected. Who knows if the wheels will come off in the playoffs again, but they should finish the regular season near the top of the conference.
4.Los Angeles Lakers: I'm well aware that the Western Conference is a lot deeper than the East and LeBron won't be able to coast to the Finals with minimal resistance for the 9th straight year, but if he can drag the 2017-18 Cavs to within 4 games of winning a title, leading a pretty talented young corps (Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball) and a barrage of the league's meme icons (Lance Stephenson, Rajon Rondo, JaVale McGee, Michael Beasley) to a 47-52 win season and homecourt advantage in the 1st round of the playoffs shouldn't be too difficult.
5.Utah Jazz: The Jazz aren't the flashiest or most dynamic team in the world, but Quin Snyder is an underrated coach that has proven he can maximize the productivity of every player on the roster and Donovan Mitchell is one of the most exciting, gutsy young playmakers in the league. They could easily end up as high as #3 if they end up overachieving on the offensive end of the floor.
6.Portland Trail Blazers: Last year's debacle against the Pelicans further proved that the Blazers are the West's version of the Raptors. Despite this latest soul-crushing playoff letdown and lack of needle-moving additions to contend with the other teams that are hanging out in the back half of the Western Conference hierarchy (Lakers, Nuggets, Spurs, Mavericks), their deadly backcourt tandem of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum will more than likely prevent them from missing out on postseason action entirely.
7.Denver Nuggets: I've been enamored with this team for years now and I'm not going to stop making this proclamation until it actually happens: the Nuggets are going to make the playoffs this year! Bizarre fixations and the biases that come with them aside, this team was literally 1 game away from getting the #8 seed last season, so as long as their underrated young corps (Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Gary Harris) takes another step forward, they should have enough juice to finally make it over the hump and secure their 1st postseason bid since 2012-13.
8.San Antonio Spurs: Gregg Popovich is a coaching icon that is capable of taking team to higher heights than expected. That being said, I just don't think an injury-riddled squad that's depending on a 33-year old LaMarcus Alridge and Demar DeRozan, who just came over from the Raptors in the Kawhi Leonard deal and has suffered from some consistency issues when he's asked to be the primary scorer in the past, to lead the charge is a good bet to win the 50+ games that is all but required to earn a high seed in the Western Conference.
9.New Orleans Pelicans: The Pelicans went on a really impressive run after DeMarcus Cousins tore his Achilles last January that culminated in a dominant sweep of the Blazers in the 1st round of the playoffs before they got bounced by the Warriors in 5 games in the conference semifinals. While Julius Randle should be able to admirably fill the void left by Boogie in the frontcourt, losing the playmaking ability of Rajon Rondo is going to really sting and I believe that lack of a reliable facilitator (new starting point guard Elfrid Payton is not that guy) might be enough to prevent this respectable team from making back-to-back playoff appearances.
10.Minnesota Timberwolves: Even if this absurd Jimmy Butler soap opera wasn't currently taking place, there'd be ample reason to be skeptical about the state of the Timberwolves heading into the 2018-19 season. Tom Thibodeau runs his starters into the ground by the time March rolls around thanks to his steadfast refusal to play his bench guys for more than 14-16 minutes per night and their offense isn't consistently dominant enough to make up for their horrific defense. They absolutely have the talent to return to the playoffs and I wouldn't be shocked if it ended up happening, but all of the extracurricular, off-the-court nonsense paired with the guaranteed late-season fatigue makes it seem pretty unlikely as of right now.
11.Dallas Mavericks: The Mavs would honestly stand a pretty good chance of making the playoffs in the East, but they're not deep or polished enough on either end of the floor to seriously contend in this absolutely loaded Western Conference quite yet. Regardless, it's going to be a lot of fun of watching Luka Doncic, Dennis Smith Jr. and DeAndre Jordan routinely do absurd things on the basketball court all year long.
12.Los Angeles Clippers: With the unsurprising exit of DeAndre Jordan in free agency and offseason trade of Austin Rivers, the few remaining traces of the Lob City-era that remained on the roster at the end of last season are now officially gone. Doc Rivers' coaching prowess and a stable of solid veteran talent (Tobias Harris, Patrick Beverley, Avery Bradley, Marcin Gortat, Danilo Gallinari, Lou Williams) should prevent them from completely falling apart, but the Clippers are now firmly in rebuilding mode and aren't likely to sniff the playoffs for at least a couple more years.
13.Phoenix Suns: Deandre Ayton is a versatile, exciting young talent that could end up making a huge impact right away and the addition of a couple of hard-nosed veteran role players (Trevor Ariza, Richaun Holmes) should make this laughably bad defense slightly less terrible this year. They're still too undisciplined, defensively-challenged and erratic offensively to be labeled a true team on the rise, but they should be able to take a notable step forward after their disastrous 21-61 campaign a year ago.
14.Memphis Grizzlies: The return of Mike Conley should provide a much-needed offensive boost to a team that scored a paltry 99.3 points per game last season (29th in the league) and Jarren Jackson could provide this aging roster with the blue chip young piece they desperately needs to enter the next era, but for now this team has an uninspiring mix of old guys (Conley, Marc Gasol, Garrett Temple, Chandler Parsons) and mediocre young players (Dillion Brooks, Kyle Anderson, Andrew Harrison) that's very likely to generate uninspired results in 2018-19.
15.Sacramento Kings: I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Kings are the worst team in the league heading into this season. Their headache-inducing, largely talent-deprived roster is a reflection of their organizational ineptitude and it's going to take a series of major miracles from coach Dave Joerger to turn this dumpster fire of mismatching pieces into a team that's even moderately functional. A win total higher than 25 would be a truly incredible feat.
Playoff Predictions:
Eastern Conference:
1st Round:
Celtics over Pistons
76ers over Cavaliers
Raptors over Bucks
Pacers over Heat
Conference Semifinals:
Celtics over Pacers
76ers over Raptors
Conference Finals:
Celtics over 76ers
Western Conference:
1st Round:
Warriors over Spurs
Rockets over Nuggets
Thunder over Trail Blazers
Lakers over Jazz
Conference Semifinals:
Warriors over Lakers
Rockets over Thunder
Conference Finals:
Warriors over Rockets
NBA Finals:
Warriors over Celtics
Year-End Award Predictions:
MVP: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks)
Defensive Player of the Year: Rudy Gobert (Jazz)
Rookie of the Year: Luka Doncic (Mavericks)
Sixth Man of the Year: Denis Schroder (Thunder)
Coach of the Year: Brett Brown (76ers)
Most Improved Player: Jamal Murray (Nuggets)
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