Opinion
With the NBA season now finished, and the Denver Nuggets crowned the 2022/23 NBA champions, it’s time to revisit my pre-season predictions and decide how much egg is on my face, or how much gloating I should be doing.
One side note before we begin: was that one of the strangest seasons ever? So many weird and wacky things happened, and it seemed like not a week could go by without an unusual story breaking, or bizarre headline dominating proceedings.
Yet, I digress. Drum roll please!
Well, well, well. What do we have here? Looks like we’re off to absolute flyer!
The Nuggets were 23/1 to win the title before the season started, and I happily took those odds.
With Denver not being a ‘glamour team’ they were hardly a sexy pick, but they did have the two-time MVP, along with injured starters Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr returning to the line-up. Along with savvy off-season signings in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown, this team was stacked, and I believed in them being a serious contender.
The one question mark I raised was whether their defence could lift enough to make them a championship team, and it seems we now have the answer.
The Nuggets were deserving champions, but much importantly than that, they enable me to walk around like a Smugasaurus Rex. Thanks Denver, and congrats to both of us.
(Photo by Justin Tafoya/Getty Images)
Holy hell, this a prediction so bad, it should almost cancel out the correct one above.
To be fair, I never actually believed Gobert was going to win MVP, I just wanted to make sure I had one ‘out there’ pick, and this one certainly qualifies as that.
The less said about this prediction the better, and possibly the only thing worse than it was the actual trade that brought the T-wolves Gobert in the first place. Just horrendous from every angle, so we’ll just jog along quickly, shall we?
Draymond didn’t end up getting traded, but perhaps he should have. The Warriors was season was a disaster from the minute Draymond punched Jordan Poole, and even Draymond himself all but admitted that at the end of the season.
The Warriors had a shocking road record, lacked cohesion all year, and their defence often fell apart. Even though they rallied in the playoffs to knock off Sacramento in an epic seven game first-round series, there was always something slightly off about the Warriors this year.
Which is a shame, because they wasted a Steph Curry MVP-level season.
Draymond remains a great fit for the roster, but changes will need to be made in the off-season, because this team has lost its mojo.
Draymond Green. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
This was actually the prediction I was most bullish about, as I was convinced teams would put on an historic tanking performance in order to put themselves in the best possible position to win the rights to draft Victor Wembanyama.
Yet it never really eventuated.
The record for least amount of wins in a season is nine, by the Philadelphia 76ers in 1973. The closest team to that ‘accomplishment’ this year was Detroit with 17 victories. Considering the Pistons had the worst record, but will only draft at five, perhaps they should have gone harder at losing more games.
Though, to be fair, the revised rules ensure there is not the incentive for teams to tank that there once was. Perhaps I should have considered that before being so cocky as to think this was an automatic notch on my predictions belt!
This prediction was looking pretty solid, as late as 60 games into the season. Then the Lakers traded Russell Westbrook, made some other roster moves, got LeBron James back from injury, and suddenly became a juggernaut.
LeBron James (Steve Dykes/Getty Images)
So well did they play, that they were close to finishing in 6th place in the Western Conference standings, which technically would have made this prediction right. And if you think I wouldn’t have claimed that as a correct prediction, then you must be new around here!
One correct prediction out of five. Which, considering they were all designed to be ‘fearless’, is a brilliant result. At least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself!
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