B/R Staff: 7 Bold Predictions for the 2024-25 NBA Season
With the first regular-season game of the 2024-25 NBA campaign just over a week away, it's time to dispense some bold predictions.
Bleacher Report's NBA staff has surveyed the landscape of the league and crafted some hot ones. From championship picks to standings predictions to calls on some of the individual awards, much of the NBA is covered.
And you can find them all below.
Scottie Barnes Will Average at Least 25 Points, 8 Assists
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Averaging 25 points and eight assists per game is something at which we don't drop our jaws anymore. That's kind of a bummer. But doing it before your 24th birthday remains objectively ridiculous.
That's why I am forecasting Scottie Barnes to become the fifth player to average 25 and 8 before reaching that milestone. If successful, he will join the likes of Luka Doncic (4x), Trae Young (3x), Oscar Robertson (2x), Tiny Archibald and Ja Morant. Not sure about you, but that seems like pretty good company.
Granted, this is an ambitious feat relative to what Barnes averaged last year. He checked in around 20 points and six assists—while playing a large chunk of the season for a Toronto Raptors team better than the one in place now.
Still, the state of the organization is part of the appeal. Someone has to drive the offense. If not the Florida State product, then who?
Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett will soak up scoring and playmaking reps but not nearly enough to displace Barnes from the ball during full-strength minutes. Even if you're a Jamal Shead, Davion Mitchell and/or Bruce Brown (injured) enthusiast, all of them top out as secondary initiators at the absolute best.
Regardless of who Toronto trots out, Barnes will be central to everything. And this says nothing about the stretches he plays without one or both of Quickley and Barrett.
Barnes is going to put up numbers this season, plain and simple. And those numbers are going to hold historical significance.
—Dan Favale
Orlando Will Trade for Anfernee Simons...or LaMelo Ball
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Bold predictions are best packaged as wishful-thinking agendas. Welcome to mine.
The Orlando Magic have so far punted on making a bigger move while their core players remain on cheapo deals. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is a nice addition—one of the summer's more consequential transactions. But he doubles down on Orlando's strengths more than he injects the requisite off-the-dribble shot-making and initiation into the offensive pecking order.
Right now, the Magic's makeup profiles as a bet on Paolo Banchero and Jalen Suggs more than anyone else. The latter is among my top Most Improved Player candidates, so I understand the logic. I just don't think it's going to be enough. Orlando is entering the phase of its trajectory in which it's trying to crack the contender clique. But it will need a higher-end weapon, particularly inside the half-court.
Fortunately for the Magic, they have the draft equity, intriguing enough prospects, matching-salary tools and flexibility underneath the tax aprons to swing big on the trade market. Their default is usually continuity—or at least not monster moves. They are going to buck that trend this year.
More specifically, I am keeping an eye on Anfernee Simons (a Florida native) and LaMelo Ball.
Simons is the less spicy of the two. His exit from the Portland Trail Blazers seems fait accompli if they ever plan on Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe being healthy at the same time. His brand of shot-making is exactly what Orlando needs.
Nothing out there suggests Ball is immediately available, but he is on his second contract and has a checkered health bill from seasons past.
With the Charlotte Hornets most likely in the early stages of their rebuild, the 23-year-old projects as less untouchable than we might think. And the Magic are good enough, right now, to value him like a finishing-piece cornerstone if they're not peeved by the state of his ankles.
–Dan Favale
SGA Wins MVP
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After finishing second to Nikola Jokić last season, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander already has solid momentum in the MVP conversation.
And now that Josh Giddey is on the Chicago Bulls, he should be able to put up even wilder numbers than the 30.1 points and 6.2 assists he averaged in 2023-24 (especially as a playmaker). SGA was the unquestioned leading scorer, but he'll now have more opportunities as the primary distributor.
Combine that with the fact that his team—which just finished first in the loaded West—got better this offseason, and you can see a compelling MVP case brewing.
The Oklahoma City Thunder should have a better record than the Dallas Mavericks. There will be some voter fatigue for Jokić (who's won three of the last four). Joel Embiid's chances always depend largely on health.
Everything is lining up for Gilgeous-Alexander.
—Andy Bailey
Nuggets Win It All
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Seemingly everyone is off the Denver Nuggets. And the pessimism from fans and media isn't hard to understand.
After they won the title in 2023, Bruce Brown left for the Indiana Pacers (cap mechanics only allowed Denver to offer him about half the annual salary Indiana could). Then, after blowing a 20-point lead in Game 7 of the second round this past spring, starting 2-guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope chose the Orlando Magic in free agency.
However, all the focus on what the Nuggets lost seems to have made everyone forget they still have the best player in the world in Nikola Jokić. His three best teammates from the 2023 run—Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr.—are all there, too.
That's a championship-level core, which is now flanked by a supporting cast you can reasonably expect to be better than last season's.
Christian Braun is better suited to defend wings and forwards than KCP (who's more of a guard stopper). Peyton Watson is a year older and presumably better. Russell Westbrook is now well aware he's a reserve, and he'll be a dramatic upgrade at backup point over Reggie Jackson. And Dario Šarić should be better than Denver's absence of a backup center in 2023-24. With all due respect to Zeke Nnaji and DeAndre Jordan, that revolving door behind Jokić was a big reason why the bench was dominated on most nights.
Predicting any individual title winner in a league as loaded as the NBA right now is risky, but the Nuggets have a generational talent and a roster good enough to help him bolster his legacy.
—Andy Bailey
Clippers Will Finish Bottom-5 in West
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It's been 14 years since the Los Angeles Clippers finished in the bottom-five spots in the Western Conference. They even made the playoffs 11 times in the past 13 years.
That streak ends now, though.
Losing Paul George in free agency is going to be devastating, especially with Kawhi Leonard already dealing with inflammation in his knee following yet another offseason procedure.
The Clippers had a good net rating of plus-4.3 overall last season (75th percentile, via Cleaning the Glass). Without George, though, this number fell all the way to minus-4.7 (32nd percentile), and the Clippers had a miserable net rating of minus-8.0 (22nd percentile) without George and Leonard.
James Harden is 35. Unless the digsite for the new Intuit Dome unearthed some kind of time machine, Harden and a collection of role players aren't going to be enough to get the Clippers anywhere near the playoffs.
The West is going to be incredibly competitive this year. Expect Los Angeles to still finish above teams like the Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz, but that may be it.
—Greg Swartz
Rockets Are Next Team to Land an All-Star
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The New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves recently became the latest franchises to trade for All-Stars, with the two swapping Karl-Anthony Towns and Julius Randle in a three-team deal.
Plenty of teams will throw their hat in the ring when the next All-Star talent becomes available, but it's a prize the Houston Rockets will ultimately win.
They are perfectly set up to trade for an All-Star for a number of reasons. This franchise made the leap from 22 wins in 2022-23 to 41 last year and should be extremely hungry to reach the playoffs in a loaded Western Conference.
Houston is flush with young talent that plenty of teams would covet, and it still hasn't signed Alperen Şengün or Jalen Green to extensions yet, making both easier to trade.
Fred VanVleet is essentially playing on a $42.8 million expiring contract that the Rockets can use to match salaries with for a star, as his $44.9 million deal for next year is a team option.
Houston also has some potentially valuable future first-round picks and swap rights coming from the Phoenix Suns (via the Brooklyn Nets from the Kevin Durant trade), assets that would go a long way in helping the Rockets bring in an All-Star as well.
Whether it's before the trade deadline or sometime next offseason, expect the next available star to end up in Houston.
—Greg Swartz
Lakers Trade for Marcus Smart or Malcolm Brogdon
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Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick said he often spoke to point guard D'Angelo Russell throughout the offseason, but reading between the lines of the 28-year-old's comments at media day, that may not have been as regular as Redick suggests.
The Lakers will see if their roster can win as is, but the franchise may be apprehensive about relying on Russell for the playoffs, where he's been inconsistent over the team's past two runs.
Two possible candidates are Marcus Smart and Malcolm Brogdon.
Smart is on a Memphis Grizzlies squad that hopes to return to the playoffs, but a disappointing start to the season could lead to changes. The Washington Wizards are rebuilding, and Brogdon is more likely to relocate than Smart.
One of the two could end up in L.A., though the Lakers would need to include additional salary in a deal to stay under the NBA's second apron.
—Eric Pincus
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