Window extended for Eastern Conference Community Predictions ... for a few more days

Western Conference forecasting, furthermore, will begin later this week

The goal, in an ideal world, was to publish our community's official 1-to-15 forecast for the Eastern Conference in 2025-26 on this Newsletter Tuesday.

It's going to have to wait a week.

I'm committed to getting at least 100 respondents to our recent call for 1-to-15 predictions and we're a little bit short. A nice rally over the past few days has taken us into the 70s, but we have to have a minimum of 100 different voices participating in this project.

Remember: It's called The Stein Line 100.

So …

If you haven't already, please click the story enclosed below this paragraph and register your 1-to-15 picks in the Eastern Conference in terms of how you think teams — in precise order — will finish in the regular season standings:

Once we get to 100 responses, I will lock the file and send out the Western Conference version so we can repeat the exercise.

The Committee (of One) will naturally publish its preseason Power Rankings in October before the regular season begins, but I love the idea of us projecting what we think will happen in each conference during the regular season as a collective. The goal every September around here is going to be coming up with a community-driven preseason forecast for the 1-to-15 ladder in each conference … how we think it will look when the regular season ends on April 12, 2026.

Once again our trusty tabulator Deven P. has volunteered to do all the hard work. Teams get 15 points for each first-place vote, 14 points for each second-place vote, 13 points for each third-place vote ... all the way down to one point for each 15th-place vote.

Two very important requests from Deven: Please drop your 1-to-15 order for the East in the file we've linked to above using team nicknames only (Cavaliers, Knicks, Magic, etc.) and please list your 1-to-15 ladder with no extra comments or elaboration. It makes it easier for him to do the tallying.

Here's my own projected 1-to-15 ladder (one more time) to get us started. Doing it just like this would help the process immensely:

1. Cavaliers
2. Knicks
3. Magic
4. Bucks
5. Hawks
6. Pistons
7. 76ers
8. Heat
9. Pacers
10. Celtics
11. Raptors
12. Bulls
13. Hornets
14. Wizards
15. Nets

Does New York have any shot to unseat Cleveland at the top of the conference under Mike Brown? Can Orlando really meet all the high expectations in circulation after trading for Desmond Bane to take advantage of the injuries that have wracked Boston and Indiana and Philadelphia and snag a top-three seed? Is there too much optimism in circulation about Atlanta's summer retooling? Is the old man showing too much faith in Milwaukee to have Giannis Antetokounmpo and Co. in the top four? (He is, after all, still the East's best player.) Will Norman Powell's arrival on South Beach be enough to keep Miami in the playoff mix? Am I crazy to think Washington can finish anywhere other than 15th?

Tell us here:

And please share the link to this story with your friends to help ensure we reach triple digits.

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As a reminder: Tuesday editions, on this and every Newsletter Tuesday, go out free to anyone who signs up, just as my Tuesday pieces did in their New York Times incarnation.

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(More) Actual pictures of our merch!

Quite a moment we experienced in last Friday's subscribers-only chat when longtime reader Derrick Jay, without warning, dropped the following picture into the conversation:

Another longtime reader — Christine Johnson — duly followed up with this comment:

Moving moments for your humble publisher.

Members of our community are actually buying this stuff!

And as promised when we introduced an online link to The Stein Line merch store via Cotton Bureau earlier this summer, I have pledged to run a picture of anyone who sends in a snap of their purchased merch. Preferably the picture shows you wearing your swag that trumpets The Stein Line, but the way Derrick did it works as well.

On two consecutive Newsletter Tuesdays now, we've had a section devoted to photos that feature one of the hippest logos in basketball.

We repeat: Moving!

And, yes, we're still game for your ideas for creative T-shirts. Some kind of design that can incorporate #thisleague? Something to spotlight The Committee (of One)? Some way to feature The People's Insider Jake Fischer alongside me? The floor is yours.

PS — If you missed the Intel-filled Substack Chat session in itself, you can re-live it all here:

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One more time …

For my latest around-the-league NBA notes published Monday … with lots and lots of the latest free agency and trade talk: