Bold Predictions with 2 Weeks Left In the 2022-23 NBA Season
The NBA regular season is about to close its doors. Before it does, we've decided to step out on a few limbs.
Yes, we just recently went through this exercise. It's already worth doing again. I'm so immeasurably confident in my other previous takes—well, half of them at least—that I feel compelled to whip up a fresh batch.
Unlike last time, we're not just limiting ourselves to the rest of the regular season. The playoffs and offseason are fair game—as are end-of-year awards and honors.
Like usual, the mission here isn't to be needlessly inflammatory. These predictions will strive to balance plausibility with ambition. And while all of them aren't scalding enough to melt tungsten, they do rage against prevailing consensus, even if only lightly.
Jaylen Brown Makes First Career All-NBA Team, Becomes Supermax Eligible
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Jaylen Brown has a ton of money on the line as we start deliberating All-NBA bids. If he makes one of the three teams, he'll be eligible to ink a four-year supermax extension worth a hair under $218 million.
Merely having the ability to sign that deal would go a long way toward clarifying his future with the Boston Celtics. At the moment, there's not too much cause to fret over ambiguous comments. Without a first-career All-NBA nod, he can only put pen to paper on an extension that nets him a 120 percent raise. It makes all the financial sense in the world for him to hit free agency in 2024.
That calculus changes with supermax eligibility. If he doesn't sign any sort of extension, or if the Celtics don't offer one, then Bostonians can start sweating it out. (As Bryan Toporek unpacked for Forbes, extension parameters could change in the new CBA. For now, though, Brown is better off prepping for free agency without supermax eligibility.)
Whether he even gets the opportunity to approach this crossroads is highly debatable. He needs to crack an All-NBA roster first. And it's not happening as a guard. The pool of candidates is too overwhelmingly deep. Stephen Curry, Luka Dončić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Damian Lillard are all locks. De'Aaron Fox, Donovan Mitchell, Ja Morant, Devin Booker and James Harden, among others, will vie for the final two spots.
Fortunately for Brown, he'll be eligible at forward. (He has spent nearly 60 percent of his possessions at the 3.) That field is far more open.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jayson Tatum are guaranteed to sew up two of the six slots. Extensive absences have thrown the rest of the ballot for a whirl. Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard are all on track to place outside the top 125 in total minutes played. Each of them could grab an All-NBA spot. Voters may also just settle on one—or none. (Zion Williamson isn't making the cut.)
Repressed cases for the usual names will help Brown's path to All-NBA. They won't guarantee it. Jimmy Butler, Pascal Siakam, Lauri Markkanen and Julius Randle would all like a word. The league has been known to fudge positional eligibilities, as well. What happens if Anthony Davis and/or Domantas Sabonis are allowed to be voted in as forwards?
Brown's credentials are strong enough to withstand the minefield. He is averaging 26.7 points, 3.4 assists and 1.1 steals while downing 57.5 percent of his twos. His three-point clip has slumped below 35 percent, but he is connecting on 46.8 percent of off-the-dribble two-point jumpers—the second-highest mark of his career—and has never averaged more free-throw attempts per 36 minutes. His defensive responsibilities also scale higher than most of the dudes he'll be battling. Marcus Smart is the only Celtics player who spends more time guarding No. 1 and No. 2 options, according to BBall Index.
There's still too much season left for me to say I believe, with every fiber of my being, that Brown will make an All-NBA team. But his candidacy is convincing enough to roll the dice—especially if you think, as I do, voters will favor players who are extremely available and have extension money on the line.
Memphis will Lose in the First Round of the Playoffs
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Matchups stand to dictate the fate of the entire 2023 Western Conference playoffs. The landscape is either gloriously chaotic or sweepingly unspectacular—or some combination of both. That waters down the spiciness of forecasting any first-round exit.
Still, extra heat is baked into this prediction when you're making it before the postseason lineup gets set.
Enter my distrust of the Memphis Grizzlies.
Sure, they're really good. And they're about to, in all likelihood, finish with the West's second-best record. They've managed to put some distance between themselves and the Sacramento Kings despite navigating absences from Steven Adams, Brandon Clarke and Ja Morant.
Memphis' defense is as advertised: absolute hellfire. Jaren Jackson Jr. would amble his way to Defensive Player of the Year honors if minutes per game weren't a factor. He might run away with the honor, anyway. The Grizzlies, as a whole, are in your face. They're like controlled anarchy. Finding weak points to target can be tough—even when Morant is on the floor and even this side of the Luke Kennard trade.
That doesn't mean we have to trust them. And I don't. The offense, in particular, doesn't seem playoff-proof. The Grizzlies are 19th in three-point-attempt rate, 24th in long-range accuracy, 26th in finishing at the rim, 25th in catch-and-shoot effective field-goal percentage and 21st in overall half-court efficiency.
Heavy dependence on second-chance opportunities and transition frequency is not effortlessly translatable to the postseason. Memphis will be even harder-pressed to sustain its offensive-rebounding presence if Adams isn't ready to rock. It has struggled on the glass ever since he went down with a right knee injury.
Granted, the Grizzlies rank sixth in half-court offense since the All-Star break—without an over-reliance on second-chance opportunities. That doesn't infer a new normal. Dillon Brooks isn't shooting almost 38 percent from deep forever. Nor will the team keep downing almost 50 percent of their long mid-range jumpers. Kennard's minutes could get tougher to survive and sprinkle in during the postseason. Who knows whether Tyus Jones will keep flame-throwing?
These Grizzlies sport the same flaws they did last year and entering the season. Internal leaps add some additional polish. (Shout-out Jackson and Desmond Bane). But the roster will be more shorthanded overall.
This raises the question: Who, beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt, do you trust (there's that word again!) Memphis to beat in the first round?
Dallas? Minnesota? Golden State? The Lakers? Clippers? These should be "nos" across the board, even if the Grizzlies enter any prospective best-of-seven sets.
Optimism bleeds through if Memphis pulls Utah, New Orleans or Oklahoma City in the opening round. But should it? The Pelicans could have Zion Williamson back. Underestimate the Thunder at your own peril. The Jazz—well, the Jazz are going to make damn sure they don't make the playoffs.
Yes, Memphis could definitely amble out of the first round. That's sort of the point for this exercise. These predictions are not givens. And given the number of times I've missed on this team, Grizzlies fans should loooove this prediction. But the concern is not unfounded. Memphis, as a unit, seems less built for playoff success than any of the league's other top-four seeds.
Chicago will Make the Playoffs
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Please note this prediction is liable to self-destruct depending on how DeMar DeRozan's quad holds up.
It is also subject to self-destruction if the Chicago Bulls deliver one of their own trademark self-destructions.
Even as I sit here, straight-faced, writing about how this 10th-place team will win the play-in tournament and make the postseason, I can't pretend to understand what's happening in the Windy City. The Bulls are 8-5 since the All-Star break, with a top-three defense and top-six net rating. Their 44-point shellacking of the Brooklyn Nets on Feb. 24 certainly inflates those returns, but they're still 11th in defense with a comfortably positive point differential per 100 possessions when you bounce it from the table.
Chicago's own blowout loss on Mar. 22 to the Philadelphia 76ers, who they beat on Mar. 20, likewise skews the data the opposite direction. So, remove the win over Brooklyn and loss to Philly from the equation, and the Bulls are left with a 7-4 record over those 11 games, through which they ranked fifth in defense and eighth in offense.
Believe in this late-season revival at your own risk. I myself am oozing skepticism. But we shouldn't entirely dismiss it, either.
The Bulls aren't going to can 38-plus percent of their triples until the end of time. Their roster isn't built for it. But it's not like they're suddenly taking enough threes. Nor is anyone playing especially over their head.
Zach LaVine is torching defenses from every level and looks unstoppable going downhill. That's not YA fiction. DeRozan continues to do DeRozan things. Patrick Williams' efficiency is off the charts, but he remains ultra low-volume. Chicago keeps running into the same low-volume warts and limitations with Patrick Beverley and Alex Caruso, too.
Coby White's bandwagon is a little more crowded; it's not filling up beyond capacity. Nikola Vučević is doing most of his damage outside the jump-shot arena. The defensive success feels like an anomaly—a season-long one. Chicago does seem to be getting lucky on opponent shooting from close range and at the foul line. It's not getting overly fortunate anywhere else, and the exterior defense remains stacked with lively pests who contest everything, get inside jerseys, take charges, etc.
Emotionally invest yourself in the peskier Bulls with a metric ton of salt. And definitely don't financially invest in them. But this prediction isn't presupposing they'll win a first-round playoff series against Milwaukee, Boston or Philadelphia. It's just saying they'll get there—something FiveThirtyEight projects they have a 23 percent chance of doing. Plus, on some level, this isn't just about Chicago. It's also about a dearth of trust in Brooklyn (seventh), Atlanta (eighth) and Toronto (ninth).
New Orleans will Break Up the "Big" 3 Over the Offseason
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Optimism is running a little higher around the New Orleans Pelicans these days. They won three straight entering Saturday's tilt with the LA Clippers. The offense seems to have remembered that Jonas Valančiūnas exists over the past week or so. The defense is seventh in points allowed per possession since the All-Star break.
Zion Williamson isn't definitely coming back by the end of the season, but he's not not coming back, either.
Forgive me if I can't treat this "surge' as a turned corner. Beating Houston, San Antonio and Charlotte isn't grounds for profound recalibration. And make no mistake, it pains me. I declared the Pelicans a contender just a couple of months ago.
Pretty much everything has unraveled since the Zion injury. New Orleans is 13-23 during that time, with almost a bottom-five offense and a shot profile begging for more threes and rim pressure. Brandon Ingram missed a huge chunk of this stretch himself, but his return has not represented a singular solve. The Pelicans are getting spanked when he and CJ McCollum play without Zion while living and dying far too extensively from the mid-range.
Expecting New Orleans to break up its Big Three—which is a truncated way of saying it will trade Ingram or McCollum—might seem like an overreaction. Of course, the Pelicans aren't great. Zion has yet again missed most of the season. How good are they supposed to be?
Better than this. And that's the problem.
The Pelicans need to do a better job reworking their core both in and outside Zion's image. Surrounding him with more high-volume snipers and a rim-protecting center is a must. His general transcendence can paper over a lot of issues, New Orleans cannot count on him being available enough for that to make all the difference.
Reorienting the core around him isn't planning for the worst-case scenario so much as reacting to life as you know it. With and without him, the Pelicans can use a better offensive organizer who has a more consistent presence from deep or at the basket. There's a little too much overlap in both the individual strengths and weaknesses of McCollum and Ingram to fancy New Orleans a finished product near the top.
Perhaps the Pelicans can shake up the base of its rotation by moving either one. They have future first-round picks and prospect equity to cobble together competitive offers independent of Ingram and McCollum. But this prediction indulges an increasingly strong inkling: that New Orleans needs a better second- or third-best player to optimize its window with Zion and will be prepared, if not forced, to act on it.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Finishes in the Top Six of MVP Voting
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Those who own residential real estate space on The Edge are free to bump this up to a top-five MVP finish for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. I came pretty close to going there myself.
Invariably, though, it's a little too bold. SGA isn't surpassing Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokić, and leapfrogging even one of Luka Dončić and Jayson Tatum feels like a stretch.
That's five spots right there. One more is left up for grabs. Though SGA currently sits sixth in my own MVP ladder, he's not assured to get it. He will be helped by limited availability from Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard, but any one of them could still appear on some ballots.
Domantas Sabonis, Damian Lillard and James Harden all hover around the top 10 of #TheDiscourse. Jimmy Butler is going to cannibalize some consideration. Devin Booker and Anthony Davis have played just enough to absorb some, too. People with long-term memories won't soon forget Donovan Mitchell or Ja Morant, either.
Win-loss purists, meanwhile, may struggle to consider the best player on a team that is neither guaranteed to finish at or above .500 or in the top of the conference. SGA isn't the only player this could impact, but he is the newest entry into the megastar tier, which renders him uniquely vulnerable to oversight.
It shouldn't. SGA is averaging over 31 points and five assists while hitting more than 53 percent of his twos, generating 10-plus three-throw attempts per game and playing the kind of defense that makes you dream big, if a little recklessly. Even during the Era of Broken Statistical Records, this meld of volume and efficiency bends the brain. Prior to this season, Curry (twice), Durant and Harden were the only players to clear 30 points and five assists while matching SGA's true shooting percentage.
Dinging him for the Oklahoma City Thunder's record or even his aversion to three-point shooting rings hollow. SGA is still among the toughest covers in the league thanks to the eccentricity of his off-the-dribble cadence. And the Thunder are a plus-150 with him on the court this season. Dallas, by comparison, is a plus-128 with Dončić.
Oklahoma City at large is brimming with feel-good stories and developments. It is deep and improving and on the cusp of a higher-end arrival. SGA is very much the soul of its operation. Among 440-plus players who have appeared in at least 15 games, only Dončić and Trae Young see more of their baskets go unassisted, and he continues to hang around the top 10 in clutch win probability added, according to Inpredictable.
Like every other guesstimate on this list, SGA's fringe MVP candidacy is not inarguable. But it exists, in airtight supply, with the strength necessary—and deserving of—crashing the back end of the ballot.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference, Stathead or Cleaning the Glass and accurate entering Friday's games. Salary information via Spotrac.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
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