Around the NBA: New Season Tips Off

by Julian Spivey & Preston Tolliver

First Quarter: NBA Finals Prediction

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The West isn’t as wild as it was in years past. The Houston Rockets’ spark has officially fizzled out, whether James Harden stays on that roster or not. The Denver Nuggets, and the Golden State Warriors, thanks to injury, are a piece away from being able to claim the throne. There’s competition, for sure, in the Western Conference - the Portland Trail Blazers and the Dallas Mavericks aren’t serious contenders but can still throw serious hands against the league’s best. But the throne belongs to one person - one King - and his court: LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers. 

The path to the top of the East isn’t much more competitive. It’s unlikely that Miami builds on its Cinderella story from last season and reaches the finals again. The Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors are still a piece or two away, and the Philadelphia 76ers lack the necessary maturity. Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks have a good shot at finally landing in the Finals, but should injuries keep at bay, we’ll likely see a rematch of the league’s two best players: LeBron James will again be defending his title - and his thrown - against Kevin Durant. 

Not only is the talent there for both teams to easily reach the Finals next summer, but so is the storytelling: Durant’s career, so far, has centered on getting out of James’ shadow and establishing himself as the league’s new head of the table. There’s also a head-to-head between James and former teammate Kyrie Irving that would make any professional wrestling promoter blush. 

I don’t expect Durant and Irving to bring a title to Brooklyn next summer. LeBron, Anthony Davis and the rest of the Lakers squad will enter the season with a death grip on the Larry O’Brien Trophy, and they won’t be letting it go anytime soon. PT

Is it boring to predict the same NBA Finals matchup this season as I did for the last season? Probably. But that’s what I’m doing. Los Angeles Lakers v. Milwaukee Bucks. The Lakers are a lock. If any other team comes out of the Western Conference to make the Finals other than the Lakers I’ll be in shock. Not only are the Lakers the defending champion, but they made their team quite a bit better in the offseason with the additions of Montrezl Harrell, Dennis Schroder and Marc Gasol. If this were a normal season (the schedule has been cut down due to the short offseason and I figure LeBron James will be taking more rest than normal) I’d say this is definitely a 70-win team.

The Eastern Conference is certainly wider open. Preston’s pick of the Brooklyn Nets making the NBA Finals would be the NBA’s dream come true, but I’m not sure the team could be expected to go that far with Kevin Durant having not played a game in more than a year and a half and who knows what the chemistry will be like between Durant and Kyrie Irving? Because these guys are among the best in the league, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Nets make the Finals, but it’s not my pick. The Milwaukee Bucks feels like they should’ve made the NBA Finals by now under two-time reigning NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. He recently signed a record-breaking extension with the Bucks, so he’s going to remain in Milwaukee for some time and now is the team for him to lead the team to the championship round. JS

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Second Quarter: Which Team Had Best Offseason?

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As if being a defending champion isn’t scary enough, the Los Angeles Lakers managed to make their roster even better this year, all but solidifying their path to a repeat championship. 

The team lost a few pieces - Rajon Rondo, Avery Bradley and Dwight Howard, to name a few - but for every dime they lost, they gained a quarter; Dennis Schroeder, Sixth Man of the Year Montrezl Harrell and Wes Matthews are among the most notable additions.

And, oh yeah, they signed Anthony Davis to a long-term contract. The new Lakers dynasty is officially in full swing. PT

It really has to be a gut-punch for the rest of the NBA to sit around during the short offseason and watch the champion Los Angeles Lakers make themselves markedly better. The signing of NBA Sixth Man of the Year Montrezl Harrell and the acquisition of Dennis Schroder (who was also high in the Sixth Man of the Year voting) from the Oklahoma City Thunder are better pieces than what the Lakers had last season and Marc Gasol should bring some great veteran presence to the roster.

I don’t think there was another franchise in the entire league who did half as much as the Lakers this offseason to improve, and again, the Lakers were already the team to beat beforehand. JS

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Third Quarter: Best Christmas Matchup

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NBA's Christmas Schedule
 New Orleans Pelicans @ Miami Heat – ESPN – 11 a.m. (central)
Golden State Warriors @ Milwaukee Bucks – ABC – 1:30 p.m.
Brooklyn Nets @ Boston Celtics – ABC – 4 p.m.
Dallas Mavericks @ Los Angeles Lakers – ABC & ESPN – 7 p.m.
Los Angeles Clippers @ Denver Nuggets – ESPN – 9:30 p.m. 

One of my favorite Christmas traditions since I was a young child in the mid-‘90s has always been watching NBA action on Christmas day. Back then they had two games on Christmas day, but now the NBA has really given us an extravaganza over the last decade or so with five games. Basically, as soon as you’re done opening presents until midnight there’s NBA action. I’ll probably only watch two games tops, but it’s fantastic the NBA gives us this many options. Maybe the season shouldn’t be kicking off just over two months after the last one ended or at all due to COVID-19 numbers in this country (as this season isn’t in a bubble), but I will be glad to have this tradition in 2020.
 
I can tell you that the best Christmas matchup and the one that I’m most interested in seeing this year are two different things.
 
I’m most interested in the Bucks/Warriors matchup. The Warriors have been my favorite team to watch over the last decade and I didn’t really get to see them in full force last year due to injuries to Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Unfortunately, Thompson will be out for a second straight season, but I can’t wait to see Curry foisting up threes and dribbling around defenders once again and doing so against the reigning two-time NBA MVP in Giannis Antetokounmpo should be a lot of fun.
 
The best NBA Christmas matchup is Lakers/Mavs though. You know it’s the best because it’s the game the NBA has given its best Christmas Day primetime slot. Mavs point guard Luka Doncic is the odds-on favorite to win MVP this season and seeing him go up against the champion Lakers should be fun every time it happens this year. JS
 
If you’d asked me this question before the preseason walloping Brooklyn laid on Boston last week, I’d have told you I was looking as forward to that game as I was our family’s Christmas ham. Now, though, as a Boston Celtics fan, I’m forced to swallow my pride and admit that the best game that day will probably be between the Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Lakers. 
 
The teams’ matchups last year were nothing short of a pugilistic melee. Luka Doncic was on the receiving end of a lot of hard hits, and the future MVP should be entering the season - and any game against the defending champions - with a giant chip on his shoulder. PT​

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Fourth Quarter: Thoughts on ESPN's NBA Top 10

ESPN’s Top 10
10. Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets)
9. James Harden (Houston Rockets)
8. Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors)
7. Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers)
6. Kevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets)
5. Kawhi Leonard (Los Angeles Clippers)
4. Luka Doncic (Dallas Mavericks)
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks)
2. Anthony Davis (Los Angeles Lakers)
1. LeBron James (Los Angeles Lakers)

First, let’s be clear: we’re determining who will be the best players this season, and therefore who will do the most to put their team in a position to win, and there’s a lot that goes into that other than on-court ability: locker room leadership, ambition, and work ethic are all factors that play key roles in leading a team to a championship. 
 
First, let’s look at a who honorable mentions:
 
Russell Westbrook. Look, he’s a triple-double machine. He’s arguably the most athletic player in the NBA who’s carrying a chip on his shoulder that’s the weight of a dying star. At 32 years old, he still has the explosiveness he had seven years ago when the Thunder reached the finals, and has the insane, way beyond psychotic work ethic that led Kobe Bryant to the hall of fame. Too often, though, he just lacks the ability to lead his team to victory when it matters most. 
 
James Harden. I know, I know. While he might be the best shooting guard in the league, this summer has proven that he just doesn’t have what it takes to get his team where it needs to be. He’s failed the Houston Rockets organization and is looking to bounce, and if his behavior doesn’t improve, it’s almost a guarantee that he’ll bring whatever his next team is down. 
 
Now, on to the ESPN rankings. LeBron James will likely always be No. 1 for as long as he’s in the league. His ability to score points is eclipsed only by his ability to make everyone he plays with better. He’s an electrical conduit - everything he touches suddenly has more energy, and that’s going to win the Lakers another championship next summer. 
 
Kevin Durant will be a reckoning on the court and is a close second behind LeBron. What he lacks in LeBron’s locker room leadership skills, he almost makes up for with his scoring acumen. With Kyrie Irving working to set him up every play, KD will have the rest of the league on notice yet again. 
 
Giannis Antetokounmpo, who just signed a max extension with the Milwaukee Bucks, is going to look to make up for the lackluster postseason performance of this summer. He’s the reigning MVP, and he’s going to remind everyone of that. 
 
The rest of my rankings closely mirror ESPN’s, with a couple more exceptions: after last season, Kawhi Leonard’s stock has fallen. He’s no longer the bogeyman he used to be, and the Clippers organization lost a lot this summer in the departures of Montrezl Harrell and Doc Rivers. The Clippers’ run as a serious threat - which lasted all of one season behind Leonard and Paul George - is already done. 
 
It’s odd that a player who led his team to an unlikely Finals run wasn’t included in the top 10. Jimmy Butler might be the NBA’s dark horse MVP candidate this year, and he’s going to try to prove that last year wasn’t a fluke. PT

It has to be incredibly scary for the other 29 NBA teams to look at ESPN’s top-10 ranking and see the top two players in the league being teammates LeBron James and Anthony Davis on the champion Los Angeles Lakers. I don’t really have much of an issue with ESPN doing that as both are top three in my opinion, but I do have to put the two-time reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo at No. 2 right now just based off that and the fact that there shouldn’t be any regression in his game (he may even continue to get better).
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I’m surprised to see Preston put Kevin Durant at No. 2 on his list since he hasn’t played a game in a year and a half, but he does believe Durant is leading Brooklyn to the Finals this season, so that makes some sense. I prefer where ESPN has Durant ranked at No. 6 heading into the season.

I think ESPN probably has the right five players in the top 10 just in a slightly different order as I would have them. I can’t believe Preston has dropped Kawhi Leonard all the way down to No. 9 simply because his Clippers team underperformed last year. I don’t think it has a whole lot to do with Leonard. I’d still include him in the top 5.

I’m going to agree with Preston that based on what he did in the postseason last year that Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler should be in the top-10 starting this season. I just can’t replace James Harden with him. Harden has proven to be a major pain in the ass and the Rockets are certainly going backward, but he’s likely going to lead the league in scoring. I’ll move Nuggets All-Star center Nikola Jokic (begrudgingly) down one spot and give Butler his place.

The only other minor thing I have with ESPN’s list is Steph Curry currently being behind Damian Lillard. I get it, Curry missed most of last season and Lillard played lights out, especially in the bubble, but I’d like to see Lillard win something first before surpassing Curry on the list. That’s not really Lillard’s fault, but it’s where I currently stand. JS

Preston's Top 10
1. LeBron James
2. Kevin Durant 
3. Giannis Antetokounmpo 
4. Anthony Davis
5. Luka Doncic
6. Nikola Jokic 
7. Damian Lillard 
8. Steph Curry
9. Kawhi Leonard
10. Jimmy Butler 

Julian's Top 10
1. LeBron James
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo
3. Anthony Davis
4. Luka Doncic
5. Kawhi Leonard
6. Stephen Curry
7. Kevin Durant
8. James Harden
9. Damian Lillard
10. Jimmy Butler