NBA predictions for 2023 — community-style
Already know what will happen in the coming calendar year? Call your shot here
Happy New Year, friends!
Our first post of 2023 is unlikely to surprise regular readers. You guys know how I tend to stick with a routine when I trust it and I'd say we've managed to establish a pretty sensible cadence when it comes to NBA prognostication in the short history of this 18-month-old Substack.
To christen the start of every new season, I always publish my Eight (Almost) Fearless Predictions in October — one man's proclamations about what will happen next in #thisleague that, well, sometimes connect and sometimes don't.
Then when the calendar flips and New Year's Eve becomes New Year's Day, getting closer to the midpoint of the regular season, we make it a community affair and invite everyone in our sphere to partake.
I saw a few wild ones recently in a Sports Illustrated Crystal Ball Compilation for 2023, which included my good pals Chris Mannix and Howard Beck respectively asserting that the Lakers will trade LeBron James and that Kevin Durant will ask the Nets to trade him. Again.
Not sure I would have gone as bold as they did — Brooklyn has been too scorching hot lately to even contemplate such a development and I still say that the Lakers will trade LeBron in the offseason only if he is the driving force pushing for it — but the floor is now open. Be as bold as you like in the attached Substack chat (via the Substack app) and I will jump in here and there to join the group forecasting.
Do you already know who will win the East? Or the West? Or the actual championship?
Can you tell us when the trade market will finally start moving? Or maybe where John Collins and Jae Crowder are finally headed?
Ready, perhaps, to tell us all who will win the MVP race? Have a good premonition instead about which team will win the Victor Wembanyama Draft Lottery in May?
Share any and all of it with us in the chat below.
Lots of good stuff here. Dare I say give the app a try and weigh in there ...
The Celtics will win the 2023 NBA finals.
The Lakers will overpay to bring Kyle Kuzma back this summer.
I will detach from reality for the off-season, burying myself in Lakers history books covering 1980-2010.
It won’t work. The Laker’s mediocrity will consume me, as I begin telling younger Laker fans about the golden years. They will tell me AD is an MVP candidate after he has two great weeks.
I will cry.
I will pray the Lakers trade AD and Lebron and hire a GM with team-building experience.
I will question my belief in God when Pelinka instead trades three first-round picks for DeMar DeRozan.
I will retreat into nihilism, accepting that there is no meaning in life and everything is randomness.
2023 sounds fun!
(This is tongue-in-cheek. Well, the nihilism and losing belief in God isn’t real. I won’t be surprised if Kuzma and DeRozan end up with the Lakers though. Or if, God forbid, the Celtics do win in 2023.)