For me this preseason I was very modest in making predictions for the upcoming NBA regular season as I was last season because for me there was still great uncertainty in regards to Covid and how league rosters would be affected by the still ongoing pandemic.
I didn’t make a big deal about Kyrie Irving because in reality how could I be critical of someone for simply making a decision based on their own beliefs and research. So here we are in December and it appears Kyrie will be back with the New Jersey Nets.
Putting Kyrie aside… I picked the Miami Heat to be the No. 1 seed in the East at the conclusion of the regular season. I loved what the Heat did by acquiring both Kyle Lowery and PJ Tucker, plus I figured Tyler Herro’s game had nowhere to go but up after his disappointing sophmore campaign.
I still feel pretty good about the Heat at 19-12. I don’t panic about places with fifty games still left in the regular season.
In the West… I picked the Golden State Warriors because of course Steph Curry and the magnificent job GM Bob Myer did this off season in transforming the Warriors into the once again pre-eminent franchise in the NBA.
The Lakers with Russell Westbrook never crossed by mind. In fact, with Anthony Davis once again now injured I’m not sure I could in good faith pick the Lakers to be anything beyond a team which might slip into the playoffs if LeBron at some point this season doesn’t murder Russell Westbrook.
The Warriors are so deep in reality it doesn’t matter when Klay Thompson returns this season unless of course Steph were to go down with an injury. Then some additional shooting and offense would be a help.
Let me in essence quote Warriors’ GM Bob Myer with the hope Sam Hinkie-Presti might at some point learn how to construct an NBA championship roster: ” You can never have too much shooting and scoring on your roster given how much the game has changed with the advent of the three point shot.”
Sam Hinkie-Presti didn’t learn this in 2016 in Kevin Durant’s free agency season and to date he still doesn’t understand you can’t sell yourself short on scoring and shooting given the way the game has changed per the NBA style of play.
Jim Traber actually understands this and since I was snarky on my earlier post in regards to Mac Jones and NFL quarterbacks…I want to make sure and give Traber credit for having this right. I’m always a fair guy at the end of the day…even with the pathetic dead blog walking Daily Thunder. I’m always fair…because I’m a Libra.
And if in the hope someone at the Daily Thunder actually crafts a singular paragraph of clever content… I won’t hesitate highlighting it on my modest blog. You can credit Juanita Elijah from John Marshall High School for instilling this quest in me for that one singular ‘graph’ of clever content from the Daily Thunder ‘writers’.
I also picked one sleeper darkhorse who I thought might make a move this season and to be fair I was prescient on this one as well as I picked the youthful yet trending Memphis Grizzlies to be that team. I love Ja Morant and I love what Memphis has done with their rebuild the past two to three seasons.
Perhaps…at some point Sam Hinkie-Presti will come to the realistic conclusion Oklahoma City is closer to being Memphis than they’re ever going to be to the Golden State Warriors.
If it were me…I’d structure the reboot in Oklahoma City more in the mold of what Memphis has done versus what Sam Hinkie tried to do with the Philadelphia 76’ers.
Those were my three NBA picks and I’m sticking with them a week before Christmas.