Revisiting 'Expert' Predictions for the 2013 NBA Finals

Looking back on early predictions for the 2013 NBA Finals, it's clear that "experts" cannot foresee exactly how the season will unfold.

Everything seemed so clear before 2012-13 began.

The stars were teaming up for some of the league's hottest franchises. Small-ball strategy was sweeping the nation. Andrew Bynum had not yet missed a game. October 2012 was truly a simpler time, and the path through the coming season could not have seemed clearer.

That said, the experts' preseason visions did not unfold exactly as planned.

We entered the 2012-13 campaign with a sure favorite from each conference. In the East, there were the Miami Heat looking to defend their title, while the ascendant Los Angeles Lakers captivated pundits out in the West.

Even though the Heat made half of that NBA Finals pairing accurate, this season has debunked the process behind the prognostication. Many of the rationales that seemed bulletproof in October were compromised or disproved outright by June.

So what was the biggest fallacy? That paper champions must become real winners, and the biggest names are title locks.

Laker Drama

"The NBA deserves this. We deserve this," ESPNLA Now host Mark Willard declared of a potential Lakers/Heat Finals matchup.

Though he did acknowledge the risk of simply picking star-powered teams that can be undone by chemistry and health issues, the prospect was too enticing for Willard to pass up.

And he wasn't alone—25 of ESPN's 35 voting analysts picked the Lakers to come out of the West, and eight then picked L.A. to win it all. TrueHoop's Beckley Mason selected the Oklahoma City Thunder to take the title, making them the only team other than the Lakers or the Heat to receive even a single vote in ESPN's poll.

The story was similar, if just a bit more reserved, over at Sports Illustrated. Four of SI's seven writers selected the Lakers to win the West, with Chris Mannix and Lee Jenkins picking them over the Heat in the Finals.

If only they all knew back then just how ugly an on-court product Los Angeles would turn out.

The infrastructure was just never there to combine that particular mix of stars. Mike Brown's Princeton offense took the ball out of Steve Nash's hands and rotated Dwight Howard away from the hoop, while Mike D'Antoni had no clue how to work with both Howard and Pau Gasol in his frenetic attack.

Then there was the issue that Kobe Bryant and his three star teammates were a combined 130 years old when the season started. Gasol and Nash missed over 30 games apiece, and all four were banged up for large portions of their playing time.

But there were problems beyond the system issues and the lack of synchronicity between injured players. 

In this potential Finals preview against Miami, Nash and Howard ended up jawing at each other after an offensive miscommunication turned into transition points for the Heat. A well-adjusted team doesn't argue like that; the severity of the encounter was the direct result of the turmoil in the L.A. locker room.

When Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times reported that Lakers players "went at each other" in a team meeting, it did not come as a surprise but as an unfortunate inevitability; the frustration from L.A.'s All-Star squad was palpable, and its play reflected as much.

By the time the postseason push rolled around, the offseason juggernaut had to fight to finish above .500 and grab the No. 7 seed in the West. The San Antonio Spurs than cleanly swept the feckless, diminished Lakers, an ignominious end for a much-hyped team.

Miami Certainty

Check out the sea of red on ESPN's Eastern Conference prediction page.

Save for Chris Forsberg, the lone poor soul to pick the Boston Celtics, every analyst for the Worldwide Leader went with the Heat to go to the Finals; 26 of them selected Miami to repeat as champs. All seven of SI's writers picked Miami to win the East as well, and five predicted the Heat would win the 2013 title.

All those experts sticking with the Eastern front-runner made the right call; in fact, the near-consensus looked pretty reasonable during Miami's 27-game winning streak.

That said, the idea that the Heat were shoo-ins to win their conference is now horribly outdated.

Doubling down on LeBron James' post-up success in Miami's 2012 championship run, the Heat attempted their title defense without a true center in their rotation. The thinking was that with offensive spacing and swarming defense, the Heat could capitalize on their star power and overwhelm traditional two-big lineups.

Then along came Roy Hibbert, casting a 7'2", 280-pound shadow of doubt over that theory.

The Indiana Pacers pushed Miami to the brink in the Eastern Conference Finals, capitalizing on their size and strength advantage inside to bully the heavy favorites.

Though the Heat did find some success fronting Hibbert and denying him the entry pass, Hibbert devoured Chris Bosh and the other Heat forwards once he got the ball in his hands. With David West also operating in the paint and Paul George challenging Miami above the rim, Miami's post defense became a serious problem.

If a couple of plays had shaken out differently, the Pacers could have dispatched the Heat before James and Dwyane Wade overran Indy in Game 7. The finale was resoundingly one-sided, but Miami escaped the series without its air of invincibility.

Back in October, the small-ball revolution in Miami and the superstar coalition in L.A. captivated the prognosticators. Yet the San Antonio Spurs—the boring, consistent, fundamental San Antonio Spurs that no one picked to win it all before the season—are still alive.

The Spurs picks are there now, albeit in moderation. Two of five SI writers did the same and picked San Antonio in six over Miami. Five of 20 ESPN analysts did the same; three of them did so even after picking the Heat before 2012-13 began.

After seven months of games, hype has been replaced by evidence. Though it largely points toward what the experts thought way back when, the shifts and flip-flops prove that we don't really know anything for sure until the games are played.