Exactly what happens during the 2023-24 NBA season is exclusively revealed here today*

*The Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza actually features a Strat-O-Matic simulation of what will happen this season ... but you'll enjoy all of it. Especially if you're a long-suffering Timberwolves fan

Consider me one of those stubborn souls who likes to scoff at the notion that retirement would be filled with boredom.

There just won't be enough to do on a daily basis without a job.

I don't buy it.

I say this all as a very hypocritical workaholic who can't picture myself retiring from NBA reportage — ever — but that's a separate discussion. I simply contend that, in the very unlikely event that I do manage to retire someday, I don't think I could possibly get bored with all the travel and projects and adventures I have in mind that are impossible now.

I would finally have time, just to name one nonsensical example, to replay several Buffalo Braves seasons from the 1970s utilizing the timeless brilliance of Strat-O-Matic basketball. I would particularly love to electronically redo the Braves' last season in town in 1977-78 ... just to see what a healthy Nate Archibald who maybe doesn't tear his Achilles in the final game of the exhibition season achieves in tandem alongside Randy Smith in the fastest NBA backcourt that never was.

I promise to write a very extensive Substack someday to tell that whole story in grand detail if I make that experiment happen, but my dear friends at Strat-O-Matic have helped me with an exercise that's far more timely and relevant: They conducted a full simulation of the 2023-24 NBA season that starts tonight — on very short notice over the weekend — to give us some highly entertaining outcomes to ponder before the Denver Nuggets play host to the Los Angeles Lakers on Ring Night tonight on TNT at 8 PM ET.

Season previews are supposed to be fun and edgy and even a little bit risqué. As you'll see when you digest the specifics of this Strat-O simulation, which is a much more managerial game than modern titles like the famed NBA 2K series, I think you'll agree that we achieved all those goals with these results:

🏀 The Strat-O Celtics won it all in lopsided fashion. They went 64-18 during the simulated regular season and zoomed through Charlotte, Cleveland and Miami in the electronic Eastern Conference playoffs with a record of 12-1.

🏀 Boston then swept the NBA Finals against (no misprint) 55-win and top-seeded Minnesota! The same Timberwolves who have not won a playoff series contested on hardwood since their 2004 run to the Western Conference finals. Told you this would be fun and edgy and risqué.

🏀 Victor Wembanyama appeared in 68 games in his simulated rookie season, averaging 19.9 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 2.4 blocks per game. (Just don't ask me how the Strat-O Spurs went 14-68 to finish last in the West with Wemby putting up numbers that the real-life Spurs would love to see.)

🏀 The Strat-O All-NBA first team: Denver's Nikola Jokić (who also won Faux MVP honors), Boston's Jayson Tatum, Milwaukee's Damian Lillard, Miami's Jimmy Butler and Dallas' Luka Dončić. (Tatum, by the way, is a very popular pick among many pundits to win the actual regular-season MVP trophy, which would make him the first American-born player to win the league's top individual honor since then-Rocket James Harden in 2017-18.)

🏀 The Strat-O Mavericks went 39-43 to miss the playoffs for a second straight season .... but they did win the NBA's first-ever Simulated In-Season Tournament by posting a 126-117 victory over the Strat-O Celtics in the Dec. 9 championship game in Las Vegas.

🏀 Tatum totaled 44 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in Boston's Game 1 Finals victory over the visiting Timberwolves. Jrue Holiday averaged 17 points and 11 assists for the Celtics in the four-game sweep and fellow Boston newcomer Kristaps Porziņģis rung up 38 points in the Game 4 clincher at Target Center.

🏀 Butler had 51 points in Game 5 of Miami's (presumably super spicy) first-round series against Joel Embiid’s Philadelphia 76ers.

🏀 The Wolves' Anthony Edwards posted a 50-point game in the Western Conference finals against Sacramento ... and the Kings' De'Aaron Fox delivered a 48-point game against the Lakers in Round 2.

🏀 Utah’s Lauri Markkanen (Jan. 8 at Milwaukee) and Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell (Feb. 3 at San Antonio) both had 63-point games during the regular season.

🏀 Screencaps are enclosed to show the final standings, playoff results and regular-season league leaders in scoring, rebounds and assists.

Are there some hard-to-believe outcomes here? Very much yes. I struggle to picture Charlotte coming anywhere close to making the East playoffs via the play-in round … or Memphis posting the second-best record in the West with all of their high-profile absentees … or Utah being 48-win good … or the Knicks slumping all the way to 33-49 … or the Superteam Suns going 43-39 and getting swept by Minnesota in Round 2 … or a variety of things that this ‘Sota-loving simulation says these Wolves are capable of.

Yet the goal, again, was to have some unbridled fun in these last few hours before the NBA's 78th season tips off in reality. And I've been playing Strat-O-Matic for unrivaled fun since the late 1970s. (League sources say I may or may not have skipped my first school dance at a local roller-skating rink in fifth grade because a new edition of Strat-O-Matic hockey landed on the front porch that same afternoon.)

Check out all the results shown here and (as Shaquille O’Neal will undoubtedly say on the season’s first Inside The NBA) … Are You Not Entertained?

Please tell me in the comments what jumps out at you as potentially prescient … or outlandish.

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Actual NBA Predictions!

I originally planned to lead this Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza with my annual Eight (Almost) Fearless Predictions.

Then the opportunity to simulate the season with an assist from my old pals at Strat-O-Matic arose, so I did some publishing schedule shuffling. There was no real case to be made against delaying those (Almost) Fearless declarations, since nothing is going to happen in the first few days of the season (we think) that messes with big-picture prognostications.

Yet I did want to make sure that I call at least a few legitimate shots, in writing, before the first jump ball of the 2023-24 NBA season. And share a very important clarification.

I’ve been making this mistake in my commentary recently and I am not alone. The NBA’s new 65-game eligibility for individual awards only applies to five specific award categories: Most Valuable Player, Most Improved Player, Defensive Player of the Year, All-Defensive Team and All-NBA Team.

Very crucially not on the list: Rookie of the Year and All-Rookie Team.

Which means that Victor Wembanyama does not have to appear in 65 games to win Rookie of the Year honors, greatly enhancing Wemby’s chances that he does just that.

Onto the predictions …

MVP: Denver’s Nikola Jokić

Rookie of the Year: San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama

Coach of the Year: Minnesota’s Chris Finch

Sixth Man Award: New York’s Immanuel Quickley

Most Improved Player: Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey

Defensive Player of the Year: Cleveland’s Evan Mobley

East champion: Milwaukee over Boston

West champion: Denver over Golden State

NBA champion: Milwaukee over Denver

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Numbers Game

🏀 31

I am calling this my Cedric Ceballos season because, yes, Cedric Ceballos wore No. 31 when we both attended Cal State Fullerton. This really, somehow, is my 31st consecutive season covering #thisleague. (You might have figured this out by now but I actually love being the old guy.)

🏀 5

The NBA has witnessed five different champions over the past five seasons: Raptors, Lakers, Bucks, Warriors and Nuggets. This last happened in the league from 1976-77 through 1980-81. Can you name those teams?

🏀 6

Only once in league history has the NBA seen six different champions in a span of six seasons: 1974-75 through 1979-80. Can you name those teams?

🏀 30

New Orleans' Zion Williamson is entering his fifth NBA season. He's played in less than 30 games in three of the previous four seasons.

🏀 1983-84

Last season was the first in league history, dating to the inception of the NBA's current 16-team playoff format adopted for the 1983-84 season, that no Central Division team reached the second round of the playoffs. (Quite a gem I didn't expect to find in my Central Division preview from The Associated Press.)

🏀 4

Andre Iguodala has retired from the NBA with four championship rings and NBA Finals MVP award … but only one All-Star appearance. My fellow Substacker Justin Kubatko takes a long look here at Iguodala’s complicated Basketball Hall of Fame case.

🏀 121

Of the 121 eligible players who played at least 1,000 career games in the NBA, according to Kubatko’s research, only three of those players have earned two or fewer All-Star selections and still reached the Hall of Fame: Manu Ginobili (two), Calvin Murphy (one), and Vlade Divac (one). Ginobili and Divac, of course, have extensive international resumes in addition to their NBA successes.

🏀 39

The Lakers’ LeBron James, who turns 39 in December, was the third-oldest player in the NBA last season behind Udonis Haslem (who played in his final game two days before turning 43) and the aforementioned Iguodala (who retired at 39). James is the NBA’s oldest player this season.

🏀 20

My pal Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press notes that only two players have averaged 20 points per game in a season where they were 39 or older. Both occurred during the 2002-03 season, when Karl Malone averaged 20.6 points as a 39-year-old and Michael Jordan averaged exactly 20.0 points at age 40.

🏀 5

Trivia answer No. 1: Portland Trail Blazers in 1976-77, Washington Bullets in 1977-78, Seattle SuperSonics in 1978-79, Los Angeles Lakers in 1979-80, Boston Celtics in 1980-81.

🏀 6

Trivia answer No. 2: Golden State Warriors in 1974-75, Boston Celtics in 1975-76, followed the Blazers, Bullets, Sonics and Lakers.

🏀 2008

Reader Chris Tobin wrote me the following note after filling out our first-ever reader survey: "I am disappointed that the Seattle SuperSonics are not listed as an option for favorite team in the survey. Please take one vote away from the Golden State Warriors and add one [for] the Sonics." Seattle, of course, last played host to an NBA game in April 2008.

🏀 97.1

Miss my interview with the legendary George Gervin about his new book Ice on 97.1 (FM) The Freak in Dallas? I’ve enclosed the podcast version of The Saturday Stein Line below. Join us online at the link embedded in this sentence or via the iHeart radio app to listen every Saturday at noon Central time ... or catch the podcasted version of the show once it drops Saturday afternoons via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your pods: