NBA 2022–2023 PREDICTIONS, PART 3

Your 2023 NBA Champion: And The Envelope, Please

God, I hope I’m wrong

In part 1, I explained my system for determining the best teams in the NBA and eliminated teams with fatal flaws. This year of parity has been especially difficult to get a feel for the teams, so I waited for the Christmas games. Then, life got in the way and it took another two weeks to finish writing this. At least these predictions were published before the playoffs begin.

With health and 3-point shooting variance, the NBA has become a complete crap shoot.

These are the teams that check the most boxes in my how-to-beat-the-Warriors system. If you didn’t read my past predictions, here are the six boxes a team needs to check if they want a chance to win a title, in order of importance.

1. Play elite defense when it counts. A big part of this is defensive rebounding (only 3 of the last 12 champions were in the bottom 10 in this area).
2. Have one unstoppable, high-efficiency superstar.
3. Have one or more players who can slow down the other team’s superstar.
4. Have a front office and coach who knows how to put a team in a position to win.
5. Shoot at least league-average on 3-point shots. (The Lakers were the only sub-36% team to win a title since Miami did it in 2012. 7 of 12 champions were in the top 4 in the league in 3-point shooting percentage.)
6. Excel at attacking the paint in both the half-court and in transition.

TIER 3: Teams with championship DNA, but no margin for error.

#7 Brooklyn Nets (2 Boxes checked)

When I started writing these predictions, Steve Nash was still the coach, Kyrie Irving was doing a great impression of Ye, and Ben Simmons was a huge question mark. They started the season as the second-worst defense, and I crossed them off as being fatally flawed.

But after promoting Jacques Vaughn to head coach, the team has been a top-10 defense and Kyrie Irving has just played basketball.

I don’t know if this team is total fool’s gold, as they are only 11–10 against .500 and above teams. But they do have Kevin Durant, and he almost beat the Bucks by himself in 2021. And he would have if his feet were two sizes smaller.

Durant is such an amazing player, he deserves to be given a non-zero chance of winning a title this year. But there are too many things that can go wrong with this team to consider it a real contender.

#6 Los Angeles Lakers (3 boxes checked)

There are so many problems to address, I had to write an entire story about what is wrong — and possibly right — with the Lakers. But their terrible 2–10 start to the season colors everything they do going forward.

While rookie coach Darvin Ham has proved to be the Westbrook Whisperer turning him into a 6th man of the year candidate, Russ can still lose too many close games with terrible outside shooting and even worse decision-making in crunch time. And you don’t pay that kind of player $47 million per year.

This is an incomplete team waiting for a trade to balance the roster and give them a chance to contend. But that trade might never come.

With another freak injury to Anthony Davis, the team looked to be on the verge of complete collapse. It seems like LeBron James has to score 40 points a night to win — he said so himself.

But the team has gone .500 during Davis’ absence and Ham has discovered that if you play forward-sized players against forwards, the try-hard guys (Beverley, Bryant, Schroder, Gabriel, Toscano-Anderson, Brown Jr., Reaves, and Westbrook) will hustle and fight every game.

#5 Miami Heat (3 boxes checked)

Miami has almost as many holes in its roster as the Lakers, but somehow they continue to be a top-10 defense (currently #8 in net rating), despite the aging Kyle Lowry. The core of the team that made it to the NBA Finals in 2020 is still there: Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, and Duncan Robinson.

But the basketball gods have been cruel to Robinson, who was the most dangerous and prolific 3-point shooter in the league that season (#4 in 3P% and #4 in made 3-pointers), flying around screens and launching without any regard for balance or position. For the last two years, his shooting has declined so badly that he couldn’t stay on the floor in last year’s playoff series against the Celtics. Without his floor-spreading firepower, Miami is #23 in 3-point shooting and #26 in offensive rating. And the Heat are one of the slowest teams (#28 in pace), so they are even more dependent on their outside shooting.

What Miami lacks in outside shooting, they don’t make up for on the inside — they are #26 in points in the paint, and #28 in fast break points.

With that bad an offense, they look like a play-in team and an easy out.

But they have one of the best coaches in the NBA, a great center who can defend on the perimeter, and perhaps the best clutch player in NBA playoff history.

Aside from the legend of playoff Rondo, is there any player who has ever raised the level of his game in the playoffs as much as Jimmy Butler?

For a guy who never made an All-NBA 2nd Team (4 times, All-NBA 3rd Team), how is it possible that Butler has matched — or outplayed — LeBron James, Giannis Antetekounmpo, and Jayson Tatum in playoff series? Last year, he took an injured, badly over-matched Heat team and forced a Game 7 against the Celtics. Had he not been injured in Game 3, and impaired in Game 4, do the Celtics get swept in the Eastern Conference Finals?

Bam Adebayo is a poor man’s Anthony Davis, so the Heat check a lot of boxes. They don’t have as high a ceiling as the Lakers, but they have a much higher floor.

With 3-point shot variance, a hot streak by the Heat gives them the smallest of chances to make a deep run in the playoffs.

TIER 4: The rock-paper-scissors contenders

From 2000 to 2020, the most dominant superstars have won the title with few exceptions: Shaq-Kobe (x3), Duncan-Parker-Ginobli (x4), KG-Pierce-Allen (1), Kobe-Pau (x2), LeBron (x4), Curry-Green-Thompson (x3).

But after the bubble season, injuries, Covid-protocol, and load management have turned the NBA into a real crap shoot. There is no dominant team that seems destined to win.

The top four teams all check a lot of boxes, but they still have weaknesses that could stop their quest for the title. The key to winning a championship this year will have more to do with who you avoid than who you beat.

Here’s my order for who is most likely to win the title based on their highest ceiling.

#4 Phoenix Suns (3 1/2 of 6 boxes checked)

The Suns are basically the same team that lapped the rest of the league during the regular season.

According to NBA.com’s Clutch statistics, the Suns were invincible in crunch time. They had the most wins (33), and the best net rating (+33.4). Their dominance is amplified by the fact that they had 7 more wins than the second-place Raptors, and more than doubled the net rating of the second-place Bucks (+15.9).

But the shine is off these guys.

Maybe you can excuse them for blowing a 2–0 lead in the Finals against the Bucks because Chris Paul wore out. But last year was a completely different vibe. They should have been forced to Game 7 by the play-in Pelicans then blew another 2–0 lead against Dallas that ended in a catastrophic meltdown in Game 7.

Jae Crowder has sat out the season so far, demanding to be traded and DeAndre Ayton is unhappy. Cam Johnson and Devin Booker have been injured. The team is limping along, in 7th in the West, but if they get healthy by April, they have a great shot to reach the Finals.

Phoenix has elite 3-point shooting and the midrange dominance of Chris Paul and Devin Booker will be lethal against any team with an immobile center who plays in drop coverage. Like Denver. And New Orleans. And Memphis.

Even though Bridges is an elite wing defender, without Crowder they don’t have anyone who can guard guys like Giannis and LeBron. That’s why they only check 3 1/2 boxes.

Here’s where the rock-paper-scissors game comes into play. Their team is Kryptonite for teams that have a slow center in drop coverage, so they should beat teams like Denver and Memphis. But small ball teams with a great wing-defender like Golden State, Boston, and the Clippers will give them a lot of problems.

And the Bucks are their worst nightmare because they have no one who can stop Giannis.

#3 Golden State Warriors (4 of 6 boxes checked)

Last year, the Warriors made an amazing run to a title despite an aging and super-expensive roster. They, not the Celtics, had a historically good defense until Draymond Green got injured in February. But they still needed a lot of lucky and unexpected factors to come together:

• They waived Gary Payton II before the season started and no other team took him. He was trying to get an interview for the job as the Warriors video coordinator and asked if he could hang around and work out with the team. The Warriors appreciated his loyalty and gave him a spot on the team. It turns out he was their best perimeter defender that season. After suffering a fractured elbow in Game 2 of the Memphis series, Payton came back a month later to stabilize the Warrior defense in the Finals against Boston. (If you think he wasn’t important, remember Game 1 when Boston hit 21 of 41 3-pointers to overcome a double-digit fourth-quarter deficit. Payton was a DNP.)
• Kelly Oubre left the team in free agency. He was supposed to be a 3-and-D guy but supplied neither. Oubre had a minus net rating (-5.3) when he was on the court for the 2020–2021 Warriors (38–34, 8th in the West). When he was off the court, the Warriors had a +6.8 net rating, for a -12.1 On/Off Rating. For context, the only regular player with a worse On/Off Rating that year was James Wiseman (-14.7).
• Otto Porter signed with the Warriors in free agency to replace Oubre. He could shoot and play a little defense. His On/Off Rating during their title season was modest (+1.6), but that’s a huge turnaround of plus-13.7 for that role.
• Jordan Poole became an offensive juggernaut, as he increased his scoring from 12 ppg in 2021 to 16.4 ppg pre-All-Star game to 23.4 ppg post-All-Star game. In the playoffs, he had a few huge games early, then tapered off. But he contributed momentum-shifting 3-pointers at key times in the Finals, including a couple of buzzer-beaters at the end of quarters.
• The miraculous redemption of Andrew Wiggins. I can’t say enough about how much he learned and improved under Steve Kerr’s tutelage. He was the biggest difference-maker in the Finals.
• Everyone stayed healthy by the playoffs.

This year, the Warriors have zero depth. They lost key role players in Porter (22.2 minutes per game) and Payton II (17.6 mpg) in free agency. They also lost dependable regular-season role players like Damian Lee (19.9 mpg), Nemanja Bjelica (16.1 mpg), and Juan Toscano-Anderson (13.6 mpg). And Andre Iguodala has not played a minute this season. Their new bench is #23 in point differential (-2.6). Last year, led by the above players and Jordan Poole, they were #1 (+11.4 point differential).

The Warriors can’t afford any injuries to the stars, because their bad bench players have to take on even bigger roles against opposing starters. This is a far cry from last year’s team, which was a far cry from the dynasty teams.

Despite Curry’s injury, the Warriors are well within reach of a first-round series at home. If they are healthy, they still have the best chance of getting through the West.

Per NBA.com, their starting lineup of Curry, Thompson, Wiggins, Green, and Looney has the best net rating in the league at +23.0 (minimum 100 minutes played).

In the Finals, I don’t see any way they can beat the Bucks, but they will still be Kryptonite for the Celtics.

#2 Milwaukee Bucks (3 of 6 boxes checked)

A lot of people have fawned over the Bucks for years, but they’ve been more like a deer in the headlights when the playoffs arrive.

The problem is the Bucks’ “historically great” defense (yeah, another Eastern Conference team that puts up huge numbers against bad teams) is always vulnerable in the playoffs. They depend on a drop coverage scheme that protects the rim and gives up wide open three-point shots more than any other team in the league.

But that falls apart in the playoffs.

• 2019: Fred Van Vleet got hot and Toronto won four straight
• 2020: Miami got hot and won their series 4–1
• 2022: Boston got hot and won in seven games

The only exception to that rule was in 2021 when they had PJ Tucker.

The least understood facet of basketball is slotting. Teams construct rosters so that stars complement the franchise player. Then they choose role players to fill in the gaps left.

The Bucks are built around Giannis, Jrue Holiday, Khris Middleton, and Brook Lopez. Each player has had the same defensive role since the team went all-in to trade for Holiday in 2020–2021.

When the Bucks won the title, they got 30 minutes of PJ Tucker’s physical defense against the opponent’s best perimeter player. This allowed Middleton to use less energy on defense and focus on creating shots in crunch time where he excelled.

Tucker also gave the Bucks the flexibility to play switching small lineups where he replaced Lopez as the center, and Pat Connaughton (23.7 mpg) was the second guard. Finally, Bobby Portis (18.3 mpg) could come in to give Giannis or Middleton some rest.

When Donte DiVincenzo (23.3 mpg) got injured in the playoffs, the team held its breath and prayed the combination of Bryn Forbes (13.7 mpg) and Jeff Teague (7.4 mpg) didn’t kill the team.

The title team was elite at taking away shots in the paint (#2) and defensive rebounding (#1).

And every time an opponent missed, Giannis would get the ball in transition and dominate. Their three-point defense was still their Achilles heel, but their physical play wore down their opponents. That’s how they beat Phoenix in the Finals.

In 2021–2022, the Bucks refused to bring back Tucker the next season and they paid the price. They replaced Tucker’s minutes with Grayson Allen (25.4 mpg) and more Portis (24.8 mpg), and the defense became average (#14 in defensive rating). Then disaster struck with Middleton’s injury in the playoffs. His minutes were replaced by the corpse of Wesley Matthews (28.8). They replaced Forbes and Teague with the corpse of George Hill and the 6'1" Jevon Carter.

This case of unathletic, too-small, or completely washed defenders made Jayson Tatum look like an MVP in Game 6. Boston survived that game, and then Grant Williams got hot from beyond the arc to blow out the Bucks in Game 7.

This year is even worse. They are only league average at protecting the rim (#14), as evidenced by the game where the lowly Lakers scored 70 points in the paint. On Christmas Day, they made Tatum look like an MVP again, as he made 9 of 12 shots in the paint and went to the line 10 times to score 41 points. Naturally, the Bucks gave up 19 3-pointers on 48.7% shooting, but the most alarming stat was that Boston dominated them inside with a 54–40 advantage in points in the paint.

The only reason I give the Bucks a better chance to win the title than the Warriors is that they have the highest floor of any team with Giannis. He seems to be the only superstar who is always available and ready to dominate his opponents. In a seven-game series, his physicality is going to break down a lot of teams. Just ask the Phoenix Suns.

I’ve got to believe that coach Bud will get them back to defending the rim at an elite level. But they will always be vulnerable to any team that gets hot from beyond the arc.

#1 Boston Celtics (4 of 6 boxes checked)

To objectively analyze the Celtics, we need to remove media hyperbole and my white-hot hate for anything in green.

The Celtics are NOT a historically good offense. Just like they were NOT a historically good defense last year.

For the last five years, the Eastern Conference has produced “historically good” teams based on advanced stats. When will the media remember that beating down bad teams doesn’t mean anything?

Remember, not one of those over-hyped teams won a championship (Milwaukee was a #3 seed the year they won).

This year, the Celtics were just a team that made more 3-pointers per game than any other team in October (16.2) and November (17.3), and shot 40%, leading to an 18–4 record. In December (14.1), they shot 32.7% and were lucky to stay above .500.

They were humiliated in road losses to the Warriors and the Clippers.

In their game against the lowly Lakers, Boston needed to make 19 three-pointers and have Anthony Davis blow two free throws at the end of regulation to escape with an overtime win.

After that, Boston lost consecutive games to the Orlando Magic. What does all that tell us? Besides the fact that ESPN is so in love with Boston their video highlight section featured the Celtics in 10 of the 14 highlights from a game they lost.

1. Stop believing in the Jayson Tatum MVP narrative. Tatum (6'8") scored 44 points in the Lakers game and it felt like 42 of them came against a guy under 6'4". Against Milwaukee, he feasts on the unathletic, small, and washed perimeter defenders they throw at him. He’s not the same guy when guarded by elite wing defenders who can match his height and physicality, such as Andrew Wiggins, Paul George, and Kawhi Leonard.
2. Boston doesn’t have a plan B when they compete against big, physical teams. The Lakers dominated them in points in the paint with a healthy Anthony Davis. Orlando killed them on the boards. All they can do is hope their 3s fall.
3. Under pressure, the Celtics turn back into a team that can’t dribble or gets to the rim consistently. Tatum has been led to believe he is Kobe Bryant, so goes into hero ball mode. Studies show that last-second heroics yield a lower made percentage by a player than his career success. Clearly, the combination of a do-or-die situation, time pressure, and the intense defense of the opponent should convince players to play within the team concept, but stars don’t think this way.

Having said all that, I still think the Celtics have the highest floor in the playoffs and the fewest scissors on their path to the championship.

And God I hope I’m wrong.

Boston checks off 4 of the six boxes (Tatum’s regression to hero ball and step-back threes makes him an inefficient superstar in too many big games, so deduct a half point, and there are questions about their rookie replacement coach so deduct another half point). Their only real deficiency is their inability to dominate in the paint — that’s never going to happen with Horford and Grant Williams out at the three-point line, and TimeLord not being a real post-up threat.

The reason I gave Boston better odds to win the title this year is that they have assembled the best overall talent in the NBA from positions two through fourteen.

While they won’t have the best player in a series against Giannis, Steph, Luka, KD, Embiid LeBron/Davis, Kawhi/PG, and Butler, the Celtics have more depth and lineup flexibility than any other team:

• One of only two teams with two elite two-way wings (Tatum and Brown). Their reserve forwards (Grant Williams and Sam Hauser) still spread the floor, as each one shoots over 40% from beyond the arc.
• They can play two bigs (Al Horford and TimeLord or Grant Williams), a traditional rim-protecting big (TimeLord), a floor-spacing big who can defend Giannis or Embiid (Horford), and a smaller floor spacing big who can run the floor (Williams) better than some of their guards.
• They have three big two-way guards (Smart, White, and Brogdon) who can defend multiple positions and all provide some ball handling.
• Their end-of-the-bench players are all functional NBA players who can fill in for injured players when they aren’t getting DNPs. All of these role players give Boston the third-best bench in the league, with a point differential of +6.7.

Boston should have their way with teams that can’t match their wing depth, such as Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Denver, and Phoenix.

Boston can win it all, but they will struggle against teams with elite two-way wings that turn Tatum into a jump shooter, such as Golden State, the Clippers, and even Miami if they get hot.

This is the first year I can’t pick a champion with total confidence.

I wrote off the Nets a few weeks ago, but they look better than any other team right now. Still, they are a few “ifs” away from being the next NBA Champion: if they learned how to defend because of their new coach; if KD stays healthy; if Ben Simmons can handle playoff pressure; and if Kyrie Irving plays basketball instead of doing whatever he has been doing since he left LeBron and the Cavs in 2017.

Every top team has major flaws.

• The Lakers self-sabotaged a championship roster.
• The Heat just aren’t that hot anymore.
• The Suns can’t keep their players happy.
• The Warriors lost their depth.
• The Bucks were too cheap to keep PJ Tucker.
• And the Celtics still can’t dribble.

What’s great about this uncertainty is that it gives more fan bases hope that their team can make a run to the Finals. It creates urgency in every regular season game as even bad teams cling to the chance of making the play-in and then going on a Cinderella run.

That’s what makes the NFL the most popular sport, and elevates normally bad NCAA basketball into March Madness. That’s entertainment.