1 Prediction for Every NBA Team This Season

Prediction: They will win at least 65 games

This prediction feels slightly bolder following the fracture Isaiah Hartenstein suffered in his left hand. But only slightly.

The Oklahoma City Thunder won 57 games last season without Hartenstein on the roster. They have since subbed out the awkward-fitting Josh Giddey for the divine-fitting Alex Caruso, and their depth remains absurd. OKC’s bench units should prove annihilatory, and it’ll be shocking if this isn’t a top-three defense.

Wins could be harder to come by in this year’s Western Conference. The tippy top of the field should be better. But that includes the Thunder.

Not one of their best players is in descent. Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams will improve, and even if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has peaked after consecutive First Team All-NBA selections, he’s not on the downswing. (Uh, also, he may not be done getting better.)

Teams this patently dominant can sometimes become their own regular-season cap. They prioritize self-preservation ahead of the playoffs. The Thunder are not at that stage in their existence. They are going to chase victories. And they’re going to get them.

Prediction: At least four players will make 100 threes.

Allow me to begin with an aside. I so badly wanted to predict the Orlando Magic will rank inside the top half of transition frequency. This team can and should run more—particularly off opponent misses. Sadly, or something, the preseason scared me into accepting reality.

And so, we move on to collective three-point shooting.

Both Paolo Banchero and Jalen Suggs cleared 100 long-range makes last year. They will do it again this season. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s arrival gets us to player No. 3.

Now it gets tricky.

Franz Wagner is the easy pick for No. 4. That doesn’t make him the safe choice. Even if you are confident his threes will fall at a higher clip, we cannot guarantee he will fire them off with the necessary volume. To be clear, he could do it. But we need another option or two to make this prediction reasonable.

Enter Jett Howard. He seems in line for a bigger role and is unafraid to unbottle deepies. Both Cole Anthony and Gary Harris also loom as options depending how much you expect them to play.

Some will maintain this is more fear-filled than not—too reserved. Perhaps they are right. If you promised me Wagner gets there, I would bump this number up to five. But just two players met the criteria last year. Doubling that number is eminently doable, though far from assured.

Prediction: The Big Three plays at least 1,000 minutes.

Is this my attempt to manifest better health and availability from the Philadelphia 76ers’ stars than we saw during the preseason? I am not going to say yes.

Even though that’s totally what I am doing.

This may not seem like a lot of joint court time. But 1,000 minutes suggests Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey will be collectively available for at least 45 to 50 games.

That’s a tall order when you consider the regular-season track records of PG and Embiid, and if you believe the latter is done playing in back-to-backs. Embiid and Maxey didn’t even clear 1,000 minutes last season as a duo.

This becomes a much more ambitious ask knowing that Embiid was on the shelf during preseason with left knee issues, and that George finished the exhibition slate alongside him with a left knee injury of his own. Neither will be available for Philly’s first game Wednesday night.

Screw red flags, though. Unless we get doomsday updates on George or Embiid, and unless head coach Nick Nurse suddenly adopts an ultra-foreign “Use your best players less” approach, this is possible. It may not be especially likely, but whatever. Positivity is cooler until it’s no longer an option.

Prediction: Ryan Dunn makes an All-Rookie team.

Keyboarding under the influence of preseason basketball is all sorts of wrong…in most cases. And, well, this could be one of them.

Rookie Ryan Dunn was considered a complete and total non-shooter coming out of Virginia. He then proceeded to drill 43.3 percent of his threes through five preseason tilts, on nearly 10 attempts per 36 minutes.

That volume and efficiency almost assuredly won’t hold. But if Dunn is a willing and capable marksman on the in-rhythm threes opponents will concede, his defensive impact will make him impossible to bury on the bench. This version of Dunn, in fact, is someone who could close games.

Having any impact, at all, for a contender in your first year is a big deal. Cason Wallace and Dereck Lively II rode this baseline to no-brainer All-Rookie selections.

Dunn is not them. His value and role to his current team is more borderline—most definitely when compared to Lively. But the Phoenix Suns have all sorts of unsettled matters beyond their Big Three. Dunn has a chance to become a rotation regular. I’m betting he does and then counting on that fueling his case as a top-10 newbie.

Prediction: The defense is league-average or better (until or unless they start making trades).

Sustaining an average defense isn’t a world-beating feat…unless you’re still in the throes of a rebuild…which is exactly where the Portland Trail Blazers find themselves. And then, if it happens, it’s just downright impressive.

Get ready to be impressed(?).

Portland finished 23rd in points allowed per possession last year. That number is actually better than its situation suggests. Injuries and late-season record manipulation ran rampant. It is a minor wonder the team wasn’t worse.

The Blazers will be a lot better this season—potentially on purpose. The rebounding (and, thus, bandwidth to end possessions) already appears on the ascent. Slightly more optimistic availability from Deandre Ayton and, much more questionably, Robert Williams III will go a long way in tandem with Donovan Clingan.

Toumani Camara continues to look like a Goliath. Jerami Grant can still hold his own. A healthy Shaedon Sharpe (please?) is pesty. Adding Deni Avdija injects more size and physicality and perimeter mobility into a rotation that, frankly, already had tons of it.

Color this too “out there” rather than fearless or optimistic. That might be the correct call, particularly when Scoot Henderson and Anfernee Simons will factor prominently into the rotation. But the personnel on this roster has the collective every-level chops to inflict chaos into opposing offenses while propping up a base half-court scheme that eludes pushover status.

Prediction: Keegan Murray receives multiple (out-of-market) All-Defense votes.

Someone more fearless than I will pencil in Keegan Murray for the top of the Most Improved Player ballot. That is reasonable in a vacuum. I have a tough time getting there when his offensive usage doesn’t project to significantly expand after the addition of DeMar DeRozan.

This will, however, be the year more people who don’t religiously follow the Sacramento Kings begin to appreciate Murray’s defense.

At the moment, there seems to be an element of praise by default. The Kings don’t have a ton of write-home peskiness, so Murray gets an “Atta boy!” for lugging a mammoth workload.

Except, well, what he does is not an overextension of his skills. The Kings didn’t just throw him on everyone from Stephen Curry to star wings to certified bigs just because. They did it because yeah, they had to, but also because it works. Murray held his own last year in so many different one-on-one situations, across all different types of assignments, while also improving his screen and overall floor navigation and emerging as a consistent helper around the basket.

Sacramento will have him shouldering the same level of responsibility—if not a heavier workload. And the rest of the basketball world will take notice. Forecasting an All-Defense appearance is too ambitious. But he’s going to get votes—consideration that won’t feel erroneous.

Prediction: Victor Wembanyama finishes in the top five of MVP, Defensive Player of the Year AND Most Improved Player

Putting Victor Wembanyama inside the top five for Defensive Player of the Year is the opposite of courageous. He is the default pick for most.

Slotting him in the top five of the MVP ladder is zestier, and at the same time, not at all hyperbolic. Imagining an outright victory is tough. But he will get plenty of fourth- and fifth-place votes if he props up an elite defense during his minutes and the San Antonio Spurs register as a net plus with him on the floor.

Most improved Player may be the diciest proposition. Perception seems to have softened on consideration for sophomores. But the “They are supposed to improve by leaps and bounds in Year 2” logic persists. And hey, it’s not exactly wrong.

Still, if Wemby’s per-game numbers tick up while seeing him cut down on his turnovers and nail more of his spot-up threes, arguments in the vein of “Going from fringe All-Star to interstellar superstar and peripheral MVP candidate is among the hardest leaps to make!” will be out in full force.

Prediction: Scottie Barnes joins the 25-and-eight club.

Averaging 25 points and eight assists per game is something at which we don’t drop our jaws anymore. That’s kind of a bummer. But doing it before your 24th birthday remains objectively ridiculous.

That’s why I am forecasting Scottie Barnes to become the fifth player to average 25 and 8 before reaching that milestone. If successful, he will join the likes of Luka Doncic (4x), Trae Young (3x), Oscar Robertson (2x), Tiny Archibald and Ja Morant. Not sure about you, but that seems like pretty good company.

Granted, this is an ambitious feat relative to what Barnes averaged last year. He checked in around 20 points and six assists—while playing a large chunk of the season for a Toronto Raptors team better than the one in place now. But the state of the organization is part of the appeal. Someone has to drive the offense. If not the Florida State product, then who?

Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett will soak up scoring and playmaking reps but not nearly enough to displace Barnes from the ball during full-strength minutes. Even if you’re a Jamal Shead, Davion Mitchell and/or Bruce Brown (injured) enthusiast, all of them top out as secondary initiators at the absolute best.

Regardless of who Toronto trots out, Barnes will be central to everything. And this says nothing about the stretches he plays without one or both of Quickley and Barrett.

Phrased another way: Barnes is going to put up numbers this season. And they’re going to have historical significance.

Prediction: Cody Williams finishes top three in Rookie of the Year voting.

Rookie of the Year contention is inextricably bound to opportunity. Consideration finds those who play a crap ton out of the gate.

Cody Williams should have no trouble meeting that criteria. The Utah Jazz are married to the future more than the present, and he’s among the few (read: two) true wings on the roster.

Standing out statistically could be more of a challenge. Paint me unconcerned. Williams can impact the game in just about every area—as a spacer, a transition threat, a driver, an on-ball defender, a helper, you name it.

Modest scoring totals could upend this prediction. Williams has more on-ball depth—and vision—than usually advertised. But he doesn’t always play like it. This is someone who may invariably suffer from thinking he cannot or should not do more, even though he can and should and must.

This isn’t enough for me to downgrade my prediction to a more cookie-cutter “Williams makes an All-Rookie team” slant. His utility is too well-rounded for superfluous caution.

Prediction: Kyshawn George makes an All-Rookie team.

This space initially had “Kyshawn George finishes the season inside the Washington Wizards starting lineup.” He rendered that too vanilla by the end of preseason.

George has some questions if you think he can turn into more of a featured scorer—mainly his capacity to generate consistent separation on the ball. The rest of his game looks ready. Or close to it.

While Washington’s rookie doesn’t forecast as a lockdown defender, he is using his size and length to successfully compete, and he’s turned in more than his fair share of help plays away from the rock. The three-ball looks good, and he’s made some sharp decisions inside the arc.

Opportunity will not be hard to come by on a Wizards squad with the timeline and intention to offer it. And George’s passing may very well be a hidden-gem tipping point. The quick swings and, more notably, composure and reads he has shown coming off ball screens are not strengths yours truly had on my Kyshawn George Year 1 bingo card.

So go ahead and pencil him in for one of those 10 All-Rookie slots. He is going to get one, and after bagging him at No. 24, Washington’s front office will be doing somersaults—if it’s not already.