10 NBA Predictions We All Got Totally Wrong This Season
Certain assumptions were made ahead of the 2015-16 NBA season. Many of them panned out. Others? Not so much.
There's only one thing to do now: Relive these mistakes.
Predicting that the San Antonio Spurs would win 60 games only to see them win slightly more than 60 contests doesn't count. This journey down Hindsight Lane is all about the greatest majority follies.
These egregious preseason miscues will be rehashed and debunked in order of increasing surprise. So check your pride at the door, because we were wrong about a whole lot.
10. The Warriors Won't Get Better
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Don't pretend like you saw this coming. Most of us scoffed at the idea of the Golden State Warriors topping the 67 wins they tallied during the 2014-15 campaign. Hell, Golden State underestimated itself.
"Hopefully 68," Klay Thompson said in August when asked how many games the reigning champs would win, per Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group.
The Warriors notched their 68th win of 2015-16 on March 30, with seven games left to play. Barring an injury to Stephen Curry or Draymond Green, they are going to win at least 73 games, breaking the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls' record for the most regular-season victories in league history.
Maybe you thought Golden State would get better, even though past champions implied otherwise. Perhaps you envisioned this team as overwhelming favorites to repeat as NBA champions.
Most of us, if all of us, didn't predict this: the Warriors as not only the best team in the Association, but the best team ever, period.
9. Rudy Gobert Is Runaway Favorite for Defensive Player of the Year
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After trading Enes Kanter to the Oklahoma City Thunder last season, the Utah Jazz posted the best defensive rating in the NBA, and it wasn't even close. And they were, somehow, even better with Rudy Gobert on the floor.
The 7'1" man-child affectionately known as "Gobzilla" would go on to finish second in block percentage and defensive box plus/minus (DBPM), the latter of which measures how many points per 100 possessions better the average defensive team is with a given player on the hardwood.
Visions of multiple Defensive Player of the Year awards danced through the heads of those who watched Gobert play. Those premonitions have since been dashed with strong doses of reality.
Gobert has missed 20 games in 2015-16, most of them due to a sprained MCL in his left knee. And while the Jazz rank ninth in defensive efficiency, that's rather disappointing given last year's uprising.
Utah has improved on the less glamorous end since the All-Star break. The team ranks third in points allowed per 100 possessions, behind only the Atlanta Hawks and San Antonio Spurs. Gobert even owns a top-five block rate and DBPM once again.
But the Jazz have not been stingy enough for long enough to prop up their big man's DPOY case. Gobert's extended absence didn't help matters, either. He has very much become a DPOY afterthought.
8. Bucks Defense
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Last season's Milwaukee Bucks finished second in defensive efficiency, just behind the league-lording Warriors. Signing Greg Monroe and welcoming back Jabari Parker, two defensive liabilities, inherently drove down the value of this swarming barricade.
But things weren't supposed to get this bad.
Milwaukee ranks 21st in defensive rating and is allowing more than six additional points per 100 possessions than last season. And that's after a substantial midseason turnaround. The Bucks fell inside the bottom three of defensive efficiency before the New Year.
No one solution has presented itself. The Bucks rank middle-of-the-road in most individual categories and are among the league's best when it comes to defending pick-and-roll ball-handlers and roll men—the foundation of any stronghold worth its sodium.
Inconsistent rim protection and off-ball prevention has plagued Milwaukee more than anything else. Head coach Jason Kidd has tried searching for the right lineup combinations to no avail. Effective defensive units are dogged by a lack of offensive polish, another area in which the Bucks cannot afford to make sacrifices.
Expect this roster to undergo a noticeable face-lift over the summer.
7. The Bulls Are a Good Basketball Team
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Had someone told you the Bulls, counter to preseason projections, would take a massive step back in 2015-16, you would have bristled or attributed the contrarian demise to an injury surplus.
Injuries, to be sure, haven't helped. Joakim Noah is done for the season; Mike Dunleavy's crusade didn't begin until February; Jimmy Butler and Nikola Mirotic have missed extensive time; Taj Gibson recently fractured his ribs, per Nick Friedell of ESPN.com; and Derrick Rose, though one of Chicago's durability success stories, has battled through ankle, hamstring and knee issues.
These setbacks, however, don't even begin to explain the the Bulls' problems.
Chicago has less than a 15 percent chance of making the playoffs after being portrayed as one of the primary threats to the Cleveland Cavaliers' Eastern Conference throne. Rookie head coach Fred Hoiberg was supposed to reinvent the offense for the better. The Bulls instead dwell in the bottom five of offensive efficiency, situating themselves just above the Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns—the NBA's premier tire fires.
On top of all that, Chicago may now be open to trading Butler, the franchise's lone cornerstone, over the offseason, according to The Vertical's Chris Mannix. The mere sentiment of moving him one year after handing him a max deal is tragic comedy.
Show me someone who saw all of this coming, from the plunge through the standings to Butler's stay in the rumor mill, and I'll show you a liar.
6. The Rockets Are Contenders
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Smart peeps always knew, on some level, the Houston Rockets were unlikely to repeat as Western Conference finalists.
Golden State still existed. San Antonio won free agency. Doc Rivers acquired Lance Stephenson. Oklahoma City brought back a healthy Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka. Houston automatically dropped down a peg or three without incurring any major personnel losses.
Still, Bleacher Report's own Josh Martin thought the Rockets would win 56 games. The folks over at ESPN.com also had them securing 56 victories and finishing second in the Western Conference.
Welp.
Houston sits under .500 and is fighting for its playoff life, scrapping and clawing with the Dallas Mavericks and Jazz for one of the West's final two slots.
Though the offense has improved statistically, it remains entirely too reliant on James Harden. He has used up more isolation possessions than eight teams. The defense, meanwhile, ranks 22nd in efficiency one season after checking in at sixth.
Forget about a championship. The Rockets are contending for something different: The right to suffer a first-round exit at the pleasure of the Spurs or Warriors.
5. Anthony Davis Will Seize LeBron James' Crown
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Pretty much all of last season was spent basking in Anthony Davis' rise, acknowledging and accepting his place amid the NBA's top-three superstars.
This was to be the season he pushed the bill even further, contending for an MVP award as he ferried the New Orleans Pelicans to a second consecutive playoff berth, perhaps even superseding LeBron James as the game's undisputed No. 1 talent.
So much for that.
Curry, for his part, has turned the best-player debate into a formality. But Davis' production decidedly peaked:
| 24.3 | 53.5 | 10.2 | 2.2 | 1.5 | 2.9 | 30.8 | |
| 24.6 | 49.3 | 10.4 | 1.9 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 25.2 |
Those numbers are still insane, and certain backslides can be easily explained.
His dip in field-goal percentage is a direct result of a varying shot selection; he has attempted 108 three-pointers this season after jacking up just 27 through his first three years in the league. The Pelicans roster, ravaged by injuries, has done nothing to help his cause, often trotting out rotations that don't include three to four of the team's most important players.
Davis has dealt with injuries of his own. Left knee surgery and a torn labrum in his left shoulder will keep him sidelined for the rest of this season.
All of this is now a part of Davis' legacy. He'll have missed at least 14 games every season, the Pelicans will be forced to hit reset over the summer and the Association's best-player conversation has, for the time being, left him behind.
4. Washington Will Be a Contender for Kevin Durant
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Multiple years worth of judicious spending and relative idleness in the name of Kevin Durant's free agency has left the Washington Wizards here, outside the Eastern Conference playoff bubble, their hopes of signing the 2013-14 MVP on life support, if not completely dead.
Andrew Sharp further explained this descent for SI.com:
"As someone who once actually believed the Wizards were getting Kevin Durant—and heard it was realistic from a few people who would actually know—let me be the first (last? loudest?) to say KD2DC will not happen. The idea made sense, but the execution was doomed by misguided loyalty to Randy Wittman and bad injury luck.
For the record, the logic behind all this began with the roster in DC, the same way the Cavs roster is what ultimately brought LeBron James back to Cleveland. Paired with John Wall and Bradley Beal, it looked like the Wizards could give Durant a chance to own the East for the next decade. But that was about 18 months ago. Now... Wall looks better than ever, but Beal hasn't been able to stay on the court, and nothing about the Wittman regime screams stability. Would you trust your future to this team?
"
You wouldn't. And Durant won't.
Any new team Durant considers must, in his eyes, have enough to combat the Spurs or Warriors with him on the roster. There would be no point in leaving Oklahoma City otherwise.
Washington is not on that short list of teams. The Wizards are statistically better when soon-to-be-maxed-out Beal sits, and both their offense and defense hover around the bottom 15 of efficiency.
What once seemed like a team on the rise now appears to be a franchise stuck in the mud. And Durant, with his title window slowly closing, will have better options elsewhere—including Oakland and San Antonio.
3. Kristaps Porzingis Is Years Away
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"We know it's going to be a maturation process."
These words, uttered by New York Knicks president Phil Jackson last June, per the New York Times' Scott Cacciola, should have defined Kristaps Porzingis' rookie season. In hindsight, they're just inaccurate.
Porzingis is by no stretch a finished project. But his NBA debut has been more of a coming-out party than maturation process.
No member of the Knicks' starting lineup has a better net rating, and that includes Carmelo Anthony. Only one other player has drilled at least 25 treys and is clearing 18 points, nine rebounds and two blocks per 36 minutes on the season: Anthony Davis.
Along those same lines, Porzingis is the first rookie of his kind. He is basically what Dirk Nowitzki would look like with DeAndre Jordan's explosion and defensive magnetism.
Can you name the last newbie to total at least 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 100 blocks and 75 three-pointers? Of course not.
There is only Porzingis, the project-turned-imminent superstar.
2. Portland Is Tanking
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Back in October, yours truly predicted the Portland Trail Blazers would win 22 games after losing four members of last season's starting five. The forecast panel at ESPN.com was slightly more generous, giving them 31.
Talk about your gross underestimations.
The Blazers are on course to win between 42 and 43 games—more than the Jazz, Mavericks and Rockets. They are seventh in points scored per 100 possessions, Damian Lillard is the closest thing to a Stephen Curry clone the NBA has, C.J. McCollum is a virtual lock to earn Most Improved Player honors and the West's No. 6 seed is theirs to lose.
Never mind that a first-round date with the Thunder seals the Blazers' postseason fate.
This team was supposed to be bad. A tanker. One of the worst in the West. That they're above .500 and headed to the playoffs is incredible.
Well, that, or Portland is just proof the vast majority of us know absolutely nothing.
1. There Will Be an MVP Race
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Stephen Curry ruined the MVP race.
Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard or Russell Westbrook should all be in the running for the Maurice Podoloff Trophy. But they're not. They're in a race for second place.
In addition to leading the league in win shares, his 31.6 player efficiency rating has only ever been matched by James, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. He also joins Jordan as just the second player to capture 30 points, six assists and two steals per game on 50 percent shooting.
And Curry is doing all this while championing an unprecedented play style. He has no offensive limitations. He sports voodoo handles, is shooting almost 45 percent from 25 or more feet away from the bucket and, as a result, notching the highest offensive box plus-minus in league history with ample breathing room to spare.
"In other words, we're still watching the best offensive season of the modern era," Bleacher Report's Adam Fromal wrote. "Frankly, it's not even that close."
It's not. And the race for MVP hardware isn't, either.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com and accurate leading into games March 31.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @danfavale.
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