The Best Early NBA Season Predictions That Could Not Have Been More Wrong
Ah yes, predictions. Now that we’re at the end of the 2018-19 season I thought it would be a fun exercise to travel back in time to October when fanbases across the league were rock hard with optimism, fancy know it alls told us how the season would unfold, and now looking back boy were there some swings and misses. To be honest we all do this, we all enter the season with irrational optimism, I’ve blogged it, you’ve tweeted it or debated it with your buddies, so this isn’t meant to shame any sort of take, but now that we have some hindsight it’s fun to look back and see just how far off we as the internet was when it came to this season. After scouring the internet for the best predictions, this is where I netted out
10. The Pelicans will make the playoffs
At the time, not that crazy of a prediction. Remember, the team won 48 games the year before and had a decent playoff run sweeting the Blazers and all that jazz. A good core of Davis/Holiday/Mirotic/Randle etc all signs were pointing to another step forward in their attempt to convince AD to stay long term. Obviously that blew up in their face when Klutch made his trade demand public, AD got “shut down”, and it’s been a dumpster fire for a team that really wasn’t in playoff contention when it all went down in February. They in my opinion were one of the safer top 8 picks heading into the year, and it could not have been further from what actually happened.
9. The Hawks lost the Luka/Trae Young trade
When we all saw what unfolded on Draft Night, the internet was quick to rush to a conclusion and deem the Mavs the runaway winner of this trade. At the time I thought it was fairly even, mostly I was happy that Luka was avoiding the ATL stink. Well jokes on me because not only did the Hawks not lose the trade, they are actually one of the more fun young core teams in the entire league. Sure they stunk and won’t win 30 games, but they are entertaining as hell to watch and Trae Young came out and silenced every single one of his doubters from back in June. Luka was as good as we thought, I just think as the internet we undersold Trae Young a little bit.
8. The Nets will finish in the lottery again
Safe to say I don’t think anyone saw the season in BKN actually happening. Vegas had them in the low 30s in terms of wins, and all they’ve done is already snag 37, have D’Angelo Russell have a breakout All Star season, and currently sit with a top 6 seed. Remember this was even with the Nets losing one of their best players in Caris LeVert for a little while. Now all of the sudden you have their players talking about how they could be a free agent destination for guys like Kevin Durant, which I think we all would have laughed at back in October.
7. The Bucks would be tied for 4th in the East
Yeah, if by 4th in the East people meant the best record in the NBA, the best point differential in the NBA, and one of the best overall seasons in NBA history. Maybe there was doubt with how the Bucks who could not shoot threes would adapt to their new system where Bud wants them to shoot a ton of threes, but after adding Lopez and the continued development of Giannis it does seem a little silly that we were so down on the Bucks heading into the year. Vegas only had them for 47 wins, and I’m pretty sure they had that shit by like the All Star break.
6. Markelle Fultz will win the MIP
This one had good intentions at least. The guy hadn’t played in forever, actually showed some signs at times heading into the year, and considering he was supposed to finally be healthy it wasn’t a crazy prediction at the time. As we know, he played like 5 games or something like that, got shut down again and eventually traded to ORL, guaranteeing he will not win this year’s Most Improved Player award.
5. LeBron would win MVP
What if I told you that a majority of the MVP predictions did not include James Harden? Some I saw from official places had Giannis either 1st or in the top 3, but there was no mention of Harden, at least not as many. I get it, hard for someone to win back to back MVPs, but if you remember there was a whooooole lot of LeBron love after everyone was jazzed about his move to LA. At this point it’s debatable as to whether or not he should even make an All NBA team, not something that tends to happen with MVP winners.
4. Porzingis would return after the ASB and cost them a top lottery spot
Silly us. Should have known that with a guy like Zion available, there was no chance the Knicks were going to fuck around and bring Porzingis back. Now I don’t think any of us saw them eventually trading their unicorn, but shame on us for underestimating the commitment to the tank that the Knicks had. They got on that train early and have been leading the charge ever since.
3. The Blazers would miss the playoffs
This was a prediction I never really understood. All of the sudden a 3 seed was going to fall out of the playoffs? Maybe people were turned off by their terrible postseason showing, but they returned mostly the same guys and have some legit talent. I think this was more someone had to be bounced if LAL was going to make it, but choosing POR was an odd choice. Now, they’re in a battle with the Rockets for a 3 seed and turned in a great response season to show last year was not a fluke.
2. The Lakers would finish the year as a top 4 seed and win close to 50 games because Magic “built them for the playoffs”
Save the whole “LeBron got hurt” nonsense. Go look at their record in games that James plays in. It’s true, they dealt with injuries all year, but listen very few among us had them missing the playoff all together and being this much of a disaster. I mean outside of trolls like me who hate the Lakers I think we all agreed they would at least make the dance. As we know they missed the playoffs for the 6th straight year, LeBron stopped caring about basketball and tried to trade his whole team causing everyone to hate each other, and now it’s no slam dunk that anyone wants to go to LAL to join forces with LeBron. Who could have seen that coming in October?
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1. The Boston Celtics would be the best team in the East and flirt with 60 wins
Ha, idiots. The lot of us. We were tricked, bamboozled, hoodwinked, the whole 9 yards. 60 wins? More like 60 losses amirite? You won’t find many people on the internet who were pumping this team up more than me so I’ll own it. I had over their 58 win projection and I didn’t even think twice about it. You can read it all yourself. I had them at 62 wins, with the same assumption as everyone else that as good as this team was last year, adding a healthy Kyrie/Hayward was going to take them to another level.
This was true, they did go to a different level, the only problem is that level was lower than what we saw from the year before. Hayward didn’t come back like we thought he would, Kyrie didn’t make them all that better despite his great season because for whatever reason they can’t stop playing like assholes. In my opinion there was no bigger swing and miss than how the basketball world predicted the Boston Celtics season. I mean we weren’t even CLOSE despite being relatively healthy compared to others. Could not have been more wrong.
So those were just 10 that I found pretty interesting only because they were so far off. Anything else stick out to you that we now look back on and shake our heads in disgust for how far off we were? Let’s talk about it.